Blink Twice (2024) review

Dir. Zoë Kravitz

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Here’s a new proposition. For every possession or Catholic horror movie Hollywood churns out, another studio has to commission a movie with an “eat the rich” subtext. Don’t bristle. You enjoyed The Menu. You probably loved Get Out. And as wrongheaded as Dumb Money was aesthetically, its message no less made beautiful music.

Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut Blink Twice keeps the recent trend of movies that (fairly) demonize the ultra-wealthy who operate like they’re above the law because, quite often, they are. It’s getting hard to shrug off these movies as fantasy when even the most biased of news outlets shows us how the privileged one-percent so frequently get off scot-free for crimes that would put me and you in the pokey for the rest of our lives. Furthermore, it’s kept kinetic thanks to its punchy pacing and slowburn reveals.

Beginning with a sincere “trigger warning,” alerting the viewer to “mature themes and depictions of violence — including sexual violence” shown within, Blink Twice first introduces us to Slater King (Channing Tatum), a disgraced tech billionaire who has been on a reclamation tour as of late. Tatum fits this role like a glove. His macho demeanor aside, his shifty facial expressions coupled with his understated range make Slater an immediate personality. It’s never made clear exactly what Slater did, but that ultimately doesn’t matter. What matters is he’s apparently been living on an island for the duration of his absence, eats food he grows, and apparently has worked on himself long enough to justify reentry into the public sphere.

Enter Frida (Naomi Ackie), a cocktail server working a gala thrown by Slater. Frida manages to cross paths with Slater through total happenstance, and the two quickly hit it off. He’s so charmed by her and her friend, Jess (Alia Shawkat), that he invites the two ladies to his private island for an impromptu vacation. Cue long days spent in the pool and long nights defined by booze, blunts, and flirtatious exchanges between Slater and Frida.

This is obviously too good to be true. Each morning, Frida wakes up with the sun kissing her skin, but her recollection of the night before is faint. She notices little things, like dirt under her fingernails. One day, Jess disappears, and nobody seems to notice, let alone recall who Jess is. Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, and Simon Rex make up some of the men on the island.

As Frida begins to question her sanity with the inexplicable disappearance of Jess, Sarah (Adria Arjona) reveals she’s been feeling the same sense of unease throughout the entire getaway. Up until this point, it appeared that Sarah was competing with Frida for Slater’s attention. Later, it is Sarah who tries to explain that women are taught from a young age that they need to compete with one another. As she’s saying the words, you can see on her face that she’s realizing how silly all of it is in the long-run.

Peppering the screen are some very delightful performances. Beyond Tatum, Naomi Ackie throws herself into the role of Frida without reservation. She’s entirely committed to the physicality and poise the character demands, and she only gets more intense the more she uncovers. I loved her dynamic with Arjona, whose star continues to shine bright following her breakout role in Hit Man. Kravitz and cowriter E.T. Feigenbaum nicely ignite their relationship, which initially starts combative but eventually graduates to believable, without overplaying needless girl power tendencies.

On an aesthetic level, Kravitz’s debut impresses. The film is skillfully edited by Kathryn J. Schubert, right down to the placement of its title card; everything from editing to music (composed by Chanda Dancy) is designed to ratchet up tension and prolific uneasy. At times, the montages of drinking and debauchery play like that of a concept, albeit one with a warped sense of place. When opting for reveals, Kravitz doesn’t hold back in making them bloody, and the contrast between a sunny slice of paradise and a slowly mounting, dreadful underbelly of violence is one in which I’m always happy to indulge.

Kravitz does lift many visual touchpoints and symbolic touches from Jordan Peele, from the diverse cast of island servants to the prolific use of animal symbolism, to the point where I wanted more of her own stylistic touches to shine. Keeping with the overarching attitude of the picture, it was originally titled “Pussy Island,” but was changed following marketing difficulties as well as a lessened appeal to women. Where Blink Twice falls short of achieving the success of its chief inspiration lies in its desire to be pulpy entertainment versus a biting, thematically rich commentary.

The audience with which I saw Blink Twice was sparse, albeit lively. Their hoots and hollers made for a good time. Consider a film like Saltburn, which was filled with misguided moments of shock and merely fleeting moments of excitement. Far be it from me to discourage a good time, which is what Kravitz’s film ultimately is, with takeaways just strong enough to elicit conversation.

Starring: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, and Alia Shawkat. Directed by: Zoë Kravitz.