Even as Jordan Peele has moved onto grander, more ambitious things, the film industry is still in the grip of Get Out, everyone still wanting that sort of propulsive, politically sharp breakout horror/thriller that blew everyone away back in 2017. To add to the long list of its spiritual descendants we can now add Blink Twice, the directorial debut of Zoe Kravitz. Playing with memory, terror, and faux-liberalism in much the same way as Peele’s masterpiece did, it’s a decent addition to the genre, this time looking at the evil that men do, specifically rich men, in an intriguing and disturbing riff on the many ‘Epstein Island’ headlines of the last few years that can thrill in the moment but struggles to sustain itself.
Formerly known as Pussy Island before being understandably retitled, Blink Twice follows Frida (Naomi Ackie), an events catering waitress who is just utterly exhausted with her monotonous, cash-strapped working life. Whilst serving at a charitable gala hosted by recently-disgraced tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), Frida, alongside her friend and roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat), disguises herself as a guest at the function, managing to catch Slater’s attention and receive an invite to his private island for a week of partying in paradise.
It’s an obviously too-good-to-be-true offer, but Kravitz and co-writer E.T. Feigenbaum do a great job on selling us on Frida’s born-of-desperation spontaneity, a spontaneity for which she is initially rewarded, before things inevitably get darker. The women on the island slowly come to realise that they’re losing memories – at least more than they should be losing on a perpetually drunken vacation – before Jess disappears entirely, leading Frida and her newfound ally Sarah (Adria Arjona) on a hunt for some seriously upsetting answers. It’s not hard to see where Blink Twice is going, even with some bordering-on-sci-fi twisty business going on, but it’s still a gutpunch when the full reveal arrives.
Though the payoff is strong, both as a cathartic end to a horror journey and as an examination of whether we use our trauma as a tool of self-justification or one of empathy, it’s a rather repetitive walk to get there, especially as the mystery isn’t all that mysterious. We know what rich men on private islands do, Kravitz isn’t interested in subverting that expectation in any way, and it’s not helped by the fact that Tatum doesn’t make a hugely convincing villain. Slater King is a role that has Armie Hammer written all over it, and while both the moral and logistical impossibilities of casting him are obvious, there’s an iciness required here that Tatum can’t quite get to.
Ackie and Arjona are much more compelling, both doing fine lines in forced smiles and repressed fear, while Slater’s awful mates are brought to pathetic yet intimidating life by a gaggle of solid supporting performances from the likes of Christian Slater, Simon Rex, and more. Kravitz frequently has them enter frames like jumpscares in a slasher movie – her direction in general is forceful, from the aggressively sharp sound design that has become a staple of this kind of thriller to the threatening pops of artificial primary colours amidst the more balmy natural surroundings. These slices of stylistic ambition make Blink Twice a solid calling card for Kravitz as a director, even if a tightening up of both the script and edit would have made a world of difference to the end product.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 