“Ben Deserves to Die”: Playing With Audience Expectations in ‘Speak No Evil’
Speak No Evil is James Watkins’ remake of the 2022 Danish film by the same name. In this remake, Americans Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis) take their tweenage daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) on an Italian vacation. Both parents are unemployed, but they’re using the opportunity, plus a recent move to London, to visit other parts of Europe. While on vacation, they meet a British family: Paddy (James McAvoy), Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and their mute little boy, Ant (Dan Hough). The British family is so cool that the Americans agree to visit them in the English countryside. But when they arrive, things immediately feel wrong.
If you haven’t seen Speak No Evil yet, prepare for a horror movie’s horror movie, the kind where the audience yells at the screen, the kind where the protagonists keep doing so much wrong that it’s actually hard to root in their favor. I didn’t personally realize they’d twisted my perspective until the guy in the row behind me muttered at the screen, “Man, Ben deserves to die.”
The strength of that statement really hit me, especially because I’d been thinking it, too. It kept my mind busy through the night, wondering how this movie got me (a person who goes to the mat for people not ever deserving whatever atrocious thing happened to them) to the point of thinking that an innocent character in this film deserves to die.
Here’s the answer I came up with: American audiences love an underdog only if the underdog overpowers a traditionally masculine villain in a traditionally masculine way.
These lines sum this up most succinctly:
BEN: Why are you doing this to us?
PADDY: Because you let us!
Speak No Evil manipulates its American audience into believing they want the protagonist to live (or win) even while actively chastising him in real-time for making thoughtless, polite decisions that repeatedly endanger not only his life but the lives of his family, too. The only aspect preventing the audience from pulling for the villain is Louise and Agnes. It’s a genius move on the part of director James Watkins, not only because I’m a woman viewing this film, but because if someone else hadn’t said it aloud, I would have gone right along thinking Ben deserved whatever happened to him because he wasn’t able to protect his family.
Speak No Evil portrays Ben, the white, male protagonist, as a shrimpy pushover, whereas the antagonist is a white alpha male from the very first scene. Ben and Louise are lounging by the pool, watching Agnes swim. Her stuffed rabbit marks that she’d been sitting in it just moments before, but when Paddy asks for it, Ben gives it to him. This is a mistake that any of us could make, but no one wants to admit it. And even though we might think it’s rude to take the chair, Paddy did ask. And Ben did say he could. So, really it’s on Ben for being a pushover.
Paddy’s the cool one again when Ben and Louise pass an open window where Paddy and Ciara are dancing to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” in their underwear, running fashionably late to the same resort dinner. Audiences (or at least I) thought, “I want to hang out with them.” Same for when the whole family is scooting around Italy on a Vespa.
At dinner the next night, when the two families sit together, Paddy does a masterful conversation manipulation where he convinces the boring Dutch couple not to join them (even while he’s actively inviting them to sit down!), by asking a disgusting toilet paper question. When that family leaves, the remaining four have a good laugh about it. Ben clearly crushes hard on Paddy, and even though Louise is wary, it’s hard not to like Paddy. He’s so charismatic. It’s at this point I think we as an audience (or at least I) realized, “Oh, I don’t want to hang out with that family. We are that cool family. ” Rather than audiences just admiring them, they instead identify with them.
If being uncool wasn’t enough to dislike him, every decision Ben makes is wrong. We learn two expository details over the first three acts about the family that further cement Ben as unsympathetic. First, Louise quit her job and moved to London with their daughter for Ben. However, he loses his job very quickly after the move. Despite that, the family stays in England without a support system or any friends or acquaintances. That leads to the second realization: Louise sexted with someone at her daughter’s school. She and Ben have been in therapy about it.
Even if we do relate to either of these situations, no one wants to admit it. Only weak men lose their jobs, right? Only weak men get cheated on, right? And of course, only weak men go to therapy, right?
The answer to all those questions is a resounding no, but somehow Speak No Evil makes us say yes. Maybe it’s because Paddy learns about their troubles and he’s sympathetic. Paddy, it should be noted, is a hot, jacked, Scotsman with a gorgeous wife and a penchant for the outdoors, including jumping off cliffs and hunting wildlife. And this man’s man? He’s not judgmental at all.
Audiences want to be sympathetic, but they don’t want to be the object of sympathy. No one does. Americans as a whole generally value strength. It’s easy to say it’s not Ben’s fault. It’s not easy to feel like he didn’t cause it. I mean, who would go on vacation when both parents are unemployed and the financial situation is tenuous? That’s not sensible at all. Furthermore, everyone in the audience can remove themselves from the situation by the simple deduction, “I’d never be in that situation. So this will never happen to me.”
Even when he and Louise make a plan to extract themselves, Ben fails to execute and caves under Paddy’s pressure. Fortunately, Louise comes up with some incredible weapons of opportunity, such as using drain cleaner for acid burns and her daughter’s anxiety-soothing breathing app as a decoy. They succeed despite Ben flubbing at every turn. But this is not Louise or Agnes’ story. They’re not the protagonists, for whatever reason. That would be a different movie.
Besides Louise’s weapons of opportunity, Agnes and Ant both have key moments in fighting against Paddy, too. Agnes uses a shot of ketamine to sedate Paddy while he’s holding her at gunpoint, even if her life is never at stake because she is the actual prize. Paddy even says now that Ciara’s dead, Agnes is “all I have to take care of me now”. It’s a bit of a reach, but it made me think immediately that Ciara was one of his first kidnapping victims, and ultimately, if he Stockholm-Syndromed Agnes well enough, she could be his next wife.
So, Paddy’s family has been pulled apart, or rather, revealed as not really a family at all. Obviously, when Ant reveals that he’s not their child, that he’s in fact been kidnapped and mutilated, we can no longer sympathize with Paddy. And being a family man is the only thing Ben has left going for him. But it’s not enough to make us like him. That was made clear by the unanimous groan from the audience when Ben stepped over Paddy without shooting him.
That faded quickly, though, into excited murmurs, “Ant’s going to do it!” And he did. In retroactive self-defense, Ant was the murderer and ends up being the real protagonist. He acts. He tries multiple times to reveal the situation to Agnes. First, he shows the inscription on his father’s watch. Then, he writes her a note. Finally, Ant steals Paddy’s keys when he’s passed out so that he can show the photos of the crimes to Agnes. Watching the kid replace the keys on Paddy’s belt loop during a piggyback ride is a truly suspenseful moment of cinema. This realigns him with the Ben-Louise-Agnes family instead of Paddy’s.
But, Ant is the strong one of the family. At least, he’s the traditionally, masculinely strong one. We actually cheered when a little boy bludgeoned his abusive father figure to death. That’s not a win! That’s a perpetuation of violence! The way Speak No Evil twists the viewer’s perspective to think that this murder is a victory is bizarre and disturbing. Even though the film itself might have leaned on its own camp and excellent acting performances all around, the disturbing feeling that this film just made us side with a child killer is truly horrific.
Categorized:Editorials
