Blink Twice movie review: A gender-violence driven thriller

Blink Twice movie review

Film: Blink Twice
Cast: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, Geena Davis
Director: Zoe Kravitz
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 102 min

Lenny Kravitz's daughter actress Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut is a social satire cum horror about the rich and their debauched dastardly ways. It's a nightmare inducing thriller that's intimate and devastating. Kravitz's narrative is replete with discomforting close-ups and series of shots that have links to a past that is only revealed towards the end. Hers is a unique way of telling a story and it guarantees a different and unusual experience.

In the opening sequence we see Frida (Naomi Ackie), a nail designer, sitting on a shit-pot and scrolling through videos on her mobile when she comes upon a video of a tech tycoon caught in the storm of controversy. Frida, seemingly unbothered by the allegations is watching the video with adoring eyes. Purportedly, the disgraced Tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) has just completed his leave of absence from company affairs, having done his penance on a private Island dealing with his issues through therapy and come back rejuvenated. At the gala he holds to announce his rejuvenated return he meets cocktail waitress Frida and falls instantly in lust - at least that's what it seems. Slater asks Frida and her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) to fly with him and his crew to his private island. For Frida that's not the strangest thing that has happened to her yet. Enroute, Frida and Jess get introduced to the rest of the group including Lucas( Levon Hawke), Cody (Simon Rex), Camilla(Liz Caribel), Tom ( Haley Joel Osmet), Heather (True Mullen), Sarah (Adria Arjona) and Stacy (Geena Davis).No cellphones are permitted on the island and free flowing drinks, drugs, locally produced food, in a sun-kissed tropical island set-up are apt for an otherworldly mood accentuated by the sexual games each is expected to play.

It's quite a bizarre set-up that seems to draw inspiration from Emerald Fennell's ‘Promising Young Woman,' the ‘Lost' and ‘Paradise Island' series but Kravitz is far more definite about sexual violence against women and the trauma it leaves behind. Kravitz's film has the women going for broke against men and the gore keeps on coming. It's a vengeance spiel that delivers bloody repugnance. Frida reasons while signing up for the island party " I don't want to be invisible anymore." It's a dig on the invisibility of Black women, but that goes astray in the melee that erupts towards the end.

"Blink Twice," is rooted in sexual menace and probably has Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby and their like as a role model for Slater King's character. There's mystery in the maid's (María Elena Olivares) weird actions but it never bears fruit. In the end it's all about getting revenge for acts that suddenly get revealed.

Tatum delivers a suave diabolic performance while Ackie and Arjona lend power to the female vengeance spiel. Adam Newport-Berra's cinematography is lush and inviting while the snappy editing keeps the momentum going. Kravitz, who co-wrote the screenplay with E.T. Feigenbaum, keeps it brisk and pacy as the developments suddenly begin to resemble a hallucinogenic, cannabis- and alcohol-infused spiel. Unfortunately balancing out the social satire and horror elements proves to be a difficult task. The narrative tends to go into overdrive as the horror elements trump the debauchery that came before it.The wrap up gets a little messy though. But it's still a fairly engaging, cautionary thriller. Life on the island starts off like a dream but waking up to the reality of it proves difficult for the women in it and to the audience watching it.