Nationalities and Norms
The most obvious difference between the two movies are the nationalities of the characters. In the Danish version, Bjørn and Louise are Danes while Patrick and Karin are Dutch. By contrast, the 2024 movie follows Americans Ben and Louise as they visit Brits Paddy and Ciara. More than just an attempt to appease the intended audience, the change in nationalities affects the movies’ central challenge, explaining why the visiting family stays, despite the hosts’ inappropriate behavior.
Bjørn and Louise don’t leave Patrick and Karin because of politeness. They don’t want to offend their hosts, even when their hosts offend them. Patrick and Karin sense this unease and use it to play on the sympathies of their intended victims. They even manage to get Bjørn and Louise to apologize for being offended.
Conversely, the American film leans into gender and political dynamics. McAvoy plays Paddy like a swaggering alpha male, the type of guy who takes Alex Jones and Andrew Tate as gospel. He keys into Ben’s insecurities, which stem from his inability to find employment and infidelity by Louise. Far more outspoken than her Danish counterpart, the American Louise is a good liberal, who stands up to Paddy throughout the movie, but backs down when Ciara challenges her for being implicitly intolerant, or worse enabling Paddy’s implied abuse.
This revision changes the meaning of the story’s big line. In both versions, when the hosts show their true colors, Bjørn/Ben asks why they’re doing this, to which Patrick/Paddy answers, “Because you let me.” In the Danish film, the visitors let the hosts kill them because they were too polite to say no. But in the American film, the hosts get away with it because Ben is too enamored with Paddy’s masculinity, and Louise is too worried about contradicting her political ideals.
Trouble at Home
As hinted above, Ben and Louise have deep-seated marital issues, which prompted them to go to Italy on vacation in the first place and erode their defenses when things get bad. McNairy plays Ben like the exaggerated soft liberal man ridiculed in right-wing media. He balls himself up and can barely raise his voice above a whisper. He guilts Louise into staying with him and moving to London, actions that leave her with deep resentment.
The Danish Bjørn and Louise do sometimes grouch at each other, but the contention is short and surface level. In fact, the camera often catches moments of intimacy between them, everything from sex to the two holding hands to comfort one another. In contrast, Ben and Louise don’t trust one another. Davis’ Louise is more forceful than Koch’s, and she makes her reservations known. But in every case, Ben emotionally browbeats her to get her to back off, in part because he thinks that he deserves indulgences from her and in part because he’s enamored with the virile Paddy. Ben wants to be Paddy and might even want to be with Paddy.