Blink Twice, co-written and directed by Zoe Kravitz, is an assured directorial debut that enters the cultural chat about toxic masculinity and class differences with real bite. Kravitz is very much in control of her effects here, maintaining a jagged pace that reflects the characters’ mental states and seamlessly working in abrupt and jarring flashbacks. Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) are struggling waiters who crash a charity gala hosted by tech-bro Slater King (Channing Tatum), who we learn in a prologue has stepped away from his business due to unspecified allegations. Frida and Slater are taken with each other, and Slater invites Frida and Jess to spend some time with his circle on a private island.
Kravitz and her co-writer E.T. Feigenbaum do a good job of pacing out the surprises and charting Frida and Jess’s growing sense of unease. The trip begins as a drug-fueled bacchanal, with the guests whiling away the days at the pool between meals prepared by Slater’s chef (Simon Rex). Everyone is friendly - almost too much so - except Sarah (a very good Adria Arjona), who seems to have her eye on Slater as well. Is is only when Jess, who Shawkat plays as knowing things are too good to be true, gets bitten by snake that the situation takes a turn. Slater is hiding a secret, and Frida isn’t sure who among her new friends can be trusted. To say a word about those friends, I’ll praise Blink Twice for its casting. Naomi Ackie is probably overqualified for this role, but she more than carries the movie with a performance that’s walking a line between Frida’s being into Slater and sheer terror. Besides Tatum, whose sense of relaxation is used to chilling effect, the casting of Simon Rex, Christian Slater, Kyle MacLachlan, and even Haley Joel Osment serves what Kravitz wants to say about thoughtless male privilege.
If Blink Twice has a flaw, it’s that once you figure out what’s going on it isn’t hard to see where the movie is going. Yet it’s to the credit of Kravitz and editor Kathryn J. Schubert that the movie isn’t wasting time even as the characters waste theirs and go out of their heads on a variety of intoxicants. We know where we’re going even if we’re not quite sure how we’ll arrive there. Zoe Kravitz wants to talk about a great deal in Blink Twice under the umbrella of how men of power can view women as disposable, but she also has things to say about traumatic experiences and the ways we do and don’t process them. Slater’s assistant and older sister Stacy (Geena Davis, used very effectively) is perhaps the most tragic character in the movie, because she has made a choice about her past and yet finds herself at another crossroads.
You may have read that Blink Twice carries a studio-issued trigger warning for some of its content, partially because of controversies surrounding It Ends With Us. While I haven’t seen It Ends With Us, I know it is based on a bestselling novel and that the trailer pretty much tells you what’s happening. That isn’t the case with Blink Twice, an original script, so at the end of this mostly positive review I’d encourage anyone reading it to know what they’re getting into before seeing the movie.