110 min | PG-13 | September 13, 2024 | Universal/Blumhouse
James McAvoy plays the worst dinner host in cinema history. The American remake of the Danish original changes the ending and earns the change. Social politeness as a weapon has never been this terrifying.
An American family vacationing in Italy befriends a charming British couple and their quiet son. The British couple invites them to their country estate for a weekend. The Americans accept because refusing would be rude. That politeness is the film’s subject and its horror. What begins as awkward social dynamics escalates into something genuinely dangerous. The original Danish film ended with nihilistic inevitability. This version gives its victims agency. Both choices are valid. This one is more satisfying.
James McAvoy plays Paddy with a performance that is the year’s most unsettling. He is charming and funny and generous and wrong. Every gesture of warmth has a purpose. Every kindness is a test. McAvoy calibrates the menace with precision. You like him. You should not. Mackenzie Davis plays Louise, the American wife, with a growing unease that becomes determination. She is the first to sense something is off and the last to be believed. Scoot McNairy plays her husband Ben with the conflict-avoidant passivity that the film indicts. Aisling Franciosi plays Paddy’s wife Ciara with a silence that speaks louder than dialogue.
James Watkins directs the remake with an understanding of what made the original work and where it could be expanded. The English countryside estate is beautiful and isolating. The social dynamics are staged with excruciating precision. Every scene at the dinner table is a negotiation where the Americans sacrifice boundaries to avoid confrontation. The tension builds through small violations. A joke that goes too far. A boundary pushed. A child mistreated while the adults smile.
The film is about what happens when politeness becomes complicity. The Americans could leave at any point. They stay because leaving would be rude. That calculation is the horror and it is more realistic than any monster or ghost. McAvoy makes it work because he understands that the scariest predators are the ones who make you feel ungrateful for being afraid.