I can't say it is a bad movie. It is not. It is really well filmed and the actors did a great job. I actually enjoyed it more than Funny Games: less torture, more build-up. Some didn't like that, but, in my eyes, more build-up made it better, not worse: the viewers getting a chance to question whether it is time to react; whether they are imagining things; remembering times when they were in awkward situations around people they did not quite approve of. But is it worth to put up a fight? I can see a lot of people wondering what the Dutch couple's motives were, but I think the storyline made it quite clear. "Because you let me" response is not just lazy writing, it is the explanation: they were testing your limits. This whole time, they were doing it on purpose. You did not pass their test, so they are now punishing you. They gave you plenty opportunities to react. To leave. To fight back. In this type of storyline it is not important why exactly they decided to start doing what they are doing. This is not exactly a maniac movie where you get a chance to explore all the "why's" - it's rather "the devil is testing you" type of movie, where characters end up in a purgatory sort of setting and get a chance to reflect on their faults and redeem themselves (or not). In all honesty, my impression was that the Dutch couple was exactly that: not humans, but demons who are doing their demon job. Perhaps, this was the impression based on the fact that other people in the environment were playing along and participating in the couple schemas. The empty house in the fields. The fact nobody's looking for those people despite them leaving their address to multiple couples. The fact they never really rushed the events, but genuinely did give the protagonists the opportunities to fight back, thus putting themselves on the line. That's either a cult, or non-humans. However, there was something that I didn't like about the movie, and it was enough to slightly worsen my experience. The choice of the hostile culture. There are two issues with it: a) the lack of reasoning (the one that works within the story, not "the Dutch studio agreed to do a collab with us" reasoning - sorry, but as a viewer, I do not care about the inner kitchen) behind this choice b) the way it was executed The lack of reasoning behind portraying Dutch as some sort of foreign indigenous tribe is painfully obvious even to the writers: they tried their very best to show self-awareness by making characters awkwardly admit that Dutch and Danish are actually pretty similar, to then mock that claim. Only that... it is not an unreasonable claim. When you want to create an overly civilized, made-soft-by-civilization man versus an honest, brutal, uncivilized man conflict, it is highly odd to choose an inhabitant of a highly educated, structured and bureaucratic country to represent the latter. Of course, there are brutal, uncivilized Dutch people. Undoubtedly, there are maniacs in the Netherlands too. However, in a story like the one in Speak no Evil, where the logic is sacrificed for a good metaphor, the "but there are Dutch maniacs!" argument is not satisfactory. The metaphor itself starts glitching. If Danish are representing "soft" and "democratic" society that highly values human rights and politeness, and the Dutch are there to challenge them, than the movie is outright claiming that the Dutch are... not quite there yet. Then, this problem could have been avoided if they made it about city culture versus the countryside culture. But, the movie makers actively tried to make it about the Netherlands. The evil Dutch cheese (oh, that infamous aggressive nationalism of the Dutch), Dutch music, Dutch snacks... everything Dutch gets punished down the poor Danish throats for the whole movie. I am surprised the Danish family wasn't forced to cycle to their deaths while smoking a pot and with tulips in both of their hands. Why the Dutch are evil (c) Going back to the demons theory and reevaluating the evil Dutch (c) issue, it looks less bad. These are not the Dutch, these are beings disguising as fellow Europeans to actually test your ability to fight and stand up for yourself and your beliefs. However, I do not think that message (if that was indeed the message) was communicated all that well.

See other user reviews