For reasons that don’t quite make sense even to me, the prospect of actor Zoë Kravitz directing/co-writing a film (with E.T. Feigenbaum) has filled me with excitement since I heard she was making Blink Twice. In interviews, Kravitz isn’t afraid to get dark, either in her humor or her discussions on just about any subject. And the idea of her doing what appeared to be a takedown of tech billionaires who think the rules don’t apply to them seemed rich for her brand of storytelling.
But even with those expectations, I wasn’t quite prepared for where Blink Twice takes us, as we follow a pair of friends and waitresses, Frida (Naomi Ackie, who recently played Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance with Somebody) and Jess (indie darling Alia Shawkat), as they get willingly swept away by uber-rich dude-bro Slater King (Channing Tatum) to his private island for a dream vacation that seems too good to be true.
The women meet a fairly large group of King’s male friends (including ones played by Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Haley Joel Osment, and Levon Hawke (Maya’s brother), who seem to be playing host to a group of equally party-centric women (Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen, and Adria Arjona, most recently flooring us in Hit Man). The days involve drinking, sunbathing, and general enjoyment, but we suspect things are off when King repeatedly asks his guests if they’re having a great time, and their response is always “I’m having a great time.” Frida is far from rich, and being pampered like this is a dream come true; even still, she begins to question her reality and even what day it is and when they’ll return to the mainland. She’s also having trouble remembering how each night before ends, all culminating with Jess vanishing and no one even seeming to realize she was there in the first place.
There are knowing, concerned looks from the help on the island; there’s a mysterious doctor (Kyle MacLachlan) who visits King regularly; and a female adviser to King (Geena Davis) who seems just on the verge of losing her mind, but she’s also fully supporting King. On the surface, everyone seems happy to a fault, but because we live in a post-Get Out world, we know something ain’t right. And eventually Frida figures that something about her dream-come-true existence is fully wrong.
I don’t think it’s spoiling anything to say that her instincts (and ours ) are right, but to get into details about what’s actually going on would be beyond spoiling some truly horrific surprises. Naturally, there’s a reason memories are fuzzy, and an argument can be made that that might be for the best (certainly Davis makes the case at one point), but the full scope of the deception is almost more than many could comprehend or stomach.
Tatum is the true standout here, a billionaire who appears to let himself be charmed by the simple pleasures of letting a woman with no real financial prospects peek behind the money curtain into life on the other side. He says he feels a connection with Frida, and in a way, that’s true. But when he reveals his true self, the actor is just as convincing as an uncut monster.
You have to buy into the premise of the deception to buy into the film as a whole, but Kravitz does an admirable job threading that needle and bringing her anti-fantasy work in for a landing without a fiery, disappointing crash. The film is about how some people walk into a trap willingly because the bait is simply too good to resist, which is in no way victim blaming; it’s simply a tale of how the rich manipulate everything and have zero sense of what the word “No” means. The film is fun, outrageous, chilling, supercharged and an absolute mind-fuck. It might even be seen as the darkest of dark comedies, and I believe Kravitz purposefully structured the film in exactly that way. Not all of the leaps of faith in the outlandish film are believable, but more than enough are to feel this one in the pit of your stomach.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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