Blink Twice
There’s something missing and a little familiar in Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, a psychological thriller set on Channing Tatum’s Fantasy Island.
Are they having a good time?: Naomi Ackie and Adria Arjona
Photo by Carlos Somonte, Image courtesy of Warner Bros.
With the welter of recent remakes at the multiplex, it was a relief to approach a total original. And yet… For anybody who’s failed to catch Jordan Peele’s brilliant, perturbing Get Out, or Mark Mylod’s ingenious and chilling The Menu, Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice might come as a huge surprise. It certainly provides Channing Tatum with a stellar, uncharacteristic turn – part smouldering charisma and smarm, part psychotic mania – but then you’d hope so, as he’s engaged to the director.
Naomi Ackie (Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance with Somebody) plays cocktail waitress Frida, who has a mega crush on the charming and handsome billionaire tech mogul Slater King (Tatum). When a high heel calamity sends her sprawling to her knees at a high-end charity event, none other than Slater King helps her to her feet. Then, after a brief tête-à-tête, he invites her to his private tropical island for a sunlit, champagne-fuelled vacation. She cannot believe her luck, even more so when she is allowed to bring along her best friend and roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) to share the experience. But once there, she is struck by the strange behaviour of the native servants and the fact that nose bleeds are becoming altogether too common…
Blink Twice does delve into some interesting places – memory, reality, manipulation, drugs and obscene wealth – and Kravitz has made some intriguing choices with her casting. Naomi Ackie is an unconventional but no less creditable a lead, just as was her compatriot Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out, while Alia Shawkat as her best friend Jess is a breath of fresh air. In the supporting ranks, Kravitz has cast former stars from yesteryear, including Christian Slater, Geena Davis, Haley Joel Osment and Kyle MacLachlan, although MacLachlan is barely on camera.
Slater King himself readily admits to being in therapy and his catchphrase is the endearing, “are you having a good time?” But like many of those with untold millions, King behaves as if he’s above the moral bar of mere mortals. There’s an aura of Greek myth about the film (think Lysistrata), which inevitably descends into Greek tragedy, while Slater King’s female guests comport themselves in the robes of scantily-clad Greek maidens. The heightened sense of reality and the amplified performances draws the viewer into a world that is more unsettling than either gripping or exactly terrifying. Had Blink Twice not been quite so derivative, its ideas of hedonism and male supremacy would have struck a stronger chord. As it is, it is alarming what some people are willing to put into their mouths, while Slater King’s comment, “there is no forgiveness, only forgetting,” provides food for thought.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, Geena Davis, Alia Shawkat, Levon Hawke, Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen, Zoë Kravitz.
Dir Zoë Kravitz, Pro Bruce Cohen, Tiffany Persons, Garret Levitz, Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum, Screenplay Zoë Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum, Ph Adam Newport-Berra, Pro Des Roberto Bonelli, Ed Kathryn J. Schubert, Music Chanda Dancy, Costumes Kiersten Hargroder, Sound Jon Flores.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Free Association/This Is Important/Bold Choices-Warner Bros.
102 mins. USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 23 August 2024. Cert. 15.
