BLINK TWICE [2024]

Blink Twice (2024)
Directed by: Zoë Kravitz
Written by: E.T. Feigenbaum, Zoë Kravitz
Starring: Alia Shawkat, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Naomi Ackie

USA

AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY, DVD AND DIGITAL

RUNNING TIME: 104 mins

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera

Animal-themed nail artist and cocktail waitress Frida works an exclusive event with her friend Jess. She encounters billionaire tech mogul Slater King, who recently stepped down as CEO for unspecified past behaviour, and who invites them both to his private island where Slater’s assistant Stacy immediately confiscates their phones. In attendance are four of Slater’s friends and business partners, plus three other female guests who are treated to a great holiday experience which includes a lot of boozing and drug taking. However,  Frida encounters a maid who seems to recognise her and calls her “red rabbit”, while Jess is convinced that something terrible is happening on the island and wants to leave….

I suppose I should start and the beginning, with the “trigger warning” which seems to be placed right at the start of all versions of this film. I was lucky when I saw Blink Twice at the cinema, because I was ever so slightly late and missed said trigger warning, meaning that I knew little of what it was actually about, and was therefore surprised and horrified. Even if one picks up on the significance of the title – a hostage might be asked to blink twice as a secret sign that they’re being held against their will – the trigger warning pretty much gives the game away, and, while it’s possible that I was having an “off” day in not picking up on what was going on for a while [though in my slight defense I did realise a short time before it was explicitly stated and shown], it does seem to me yet another example of this ridiculous kind of nannying in a time when, for example, ’60s James Bond movies also receive this kind of pathetic nonsense for cinema screenings., though admittedly for a somewhat different reason. But enough about that, and on to the movie itself which originally even had a much more obvious title. It’s a pretty impressive directorial and co-writing debut from Zoe Kravitz, which some might say is just another offering in a recent line of films employing the lovely retreat from reality trope that turns out not to be lovely at all, not to mention showing how bad wealthy, white males are. However Kravitz wrote it back in 2017 and, while on my second viewing I did notice a bit of clumsy plotting, she and co-writer E. T. Feigenbaum employ some interesting and even subversive touches, not to mention Kravitz, in her helming debut, showing some cracking directorial skill, especially in building uneasy tension.

After we zoom out from an iguana, a creature that is actually shown again much later though its meaning eludes me, we join our heroine Frida browsing her social media while on the toilet and seeing a part of an interview with a chap who apologises for having done something wrong, even though he understands that people may not “forgive and forget”, and is taking a leave for the company that he owns. A knock at the door warns her that her supervisor will be there soon, then said supervisor tells her that she was “a bit chatty” last year and needs to be “a little bit more invisible”. Yeah, just know your place and stick with it. She then chats with her friend Jess who keeps on going back to an unspecified partner. “Stop giving away your power” she says to her. A fair bit has already been foreshadowed here, indeed the main themes have already been made clear. The two women are working at a gala night, and Frida is fascinated by the man she’d just been watching on her phone,  super-rich Slater, to the point that she accidentally falls over, spilling wine and cutting her hand –  but he rips off her high heels – a sort of Cinderella reference? – and invites her and Jess to dinner. Now I didn’t initially plan to review Blink Twice, because my cinema viewing was in the middle of a very busy time for me, but now I own it on disc [sadly no special features though, I’d love to hear what Zoe has to say on certain aspects], I decided to finally do it. But me initially opting not to do it meant that I did read some other reviews, and two of them said that its feminist message was contradicted by its portrayal of women as gold-diggers, though I wasn’t actually sure what Frida’s motives were, and anyway my very good female friend with whom I watched the film with explained Channing Tatum’s immense magnetism and immense sexiness to me [both things that I don’t get], so there you go!

Something that confounded me more was how easy the girls allowed their phones to be taken off them once they reached Slater’s island, but never mind. The island paradise seems too good to be true, from heavenly scented flowers to gift bags of perfume to posh meals to endless booze to nights largely spent high on a combination of psilocybin and MDMA, dancing about and talking shit. The only danger they’re aware of is an invasive snake species, and that’s hunted by the staff daily who all wear snake tattoos. Frida is living out her dream, delighting in Slater’s gaze while indulging in all the extravagances he bestows upon her, for free, but then again the other seven girls also seem to be loving it; well except for Sarah, who spent two years training for a reality show only for it to be cancelled because it was considered exploitative, and who thinks that Slater is hers. Camilla has just had her app approved, while lawyer Heather just wants to get stoned. Also in attendance are Slater’s friends and business partners: photographer Vic, private chef Cody, DJ Tom, and college graduate Lucas. Oh, and Slater’s unobtrusive but watchful security guard. They seem fine, if at times rather goofy. However, the elderly maid who seems to recognise Frida and call her “Red Rabbit” [something that works well as fairly obvious symbolism as well in as a climactic revelation] is a bit odd and uncanny. During a night of partying, Jess is bitten by a snake and later tells Frida she wants to leave, that there is something terrible happening, but after all none of the guys actually makes a move on any of the gals, and even Slater, who’s parties are apparently not full of debauchery like they used to be, keeping Frida at arm’s length.

But wine spilt on Frida’s dress that disappears then her noticing that her nails are dirty, Cody losing his knife, Jess disappearing and Sarah saying that bad stuff is going on lead to Frida and Sarah going snooping in a hugely suspenseful section which doesn’t suffer at all for humorous touches. But some will, and will have already, found Blink Twice to be too slow for much of its length, even though I really liked the way that we’re allowed to experience the characters’ complacency as they’re wooed with excessiveness and an escape from real-world responsibilities. We could have possibly done with one less partying scene, but a second viewing reveals a lot of details that show how meticulously the build up has been crafted though it may also make us more likely to ponder on a rather silly element of the plot. While I’m trying not to give everything away [though may have failed], I will say that much of it centres around a drug that makes people forget things, and also an antidote made from the snakes. Surely it’s rather too coincidental that such snakes would exist in the same place that Slater is using this drug? And how did they even find out that said venom reduces memory loss? Yet the whole “memory” aspect leads to what are possibly the most tense and upsetting [as they should be] moments of the film, as memory returns to some of the characters – simply but powerfully introduced by nosebleeds – and they have to disguise this fact. The acting by everyone concerned is totally on point here, but especially by Adria Adjona who, despite the fine work done by a varied and interesting cast, delivers what’s to me the standout performance, especially during the scenes mentioned. The pain on her face as she realises what’s been happening but has to hold it in is more disturbing than the extremely brief but effective in their own right flashbacks that reveal it.

Those who want brutal violence certainly eventually get it, though it’s not generally lingered upon and sometimes even cut away from, as if Kravitz and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra were playing on the idea of what we want to see. Newport-Berra’s work here really deserves a shout, with a lot of fine precise compositions especially during nocturnal sequences. In general Kravitz’s style, from staging to pacing, is similar to that of Jordan Peele, though hopefully she’ll be able to write or co-write more decent movie scripts unlike Peele who’s puzzlingly so far only been able to deliver a grand total of – one – and you know what that one is. We’re in no doubt as to what Kravitz is saying with her film, and yeah, the men in it are all bad [though it’s interesting that Slater has a therapist and may have had something bad happen to him when he was young], but they probably have to be in order for the story to work, and it never feels like she’s preaching to us or being hateful. And there are some interesting nuances. I agree with the majority that Naomi Ackie is good even though I think she occasionally struggles with a somewhat thin character, and that Channing Tatum, an actor I’ve never totally warmed too despite having shown some mild comedic chops here and there, oozes charm, sleave and control as Slater. Haley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan and Christian Slater [why didn’t he last as a big star?] are as strange and effective as you’d probably expect. I’ve already mentioned the brilliance of Adjona though had to mention it again in passing. But then there’s also Geena Davies as Stacy, Slater’s seemingly constantly wrecked assistant, who ensures all of Slater’s needs are met, no matter how trivial, as well as telling Frida that “forgetting is a gift, hun”. So little screen time, and yet so much impact of a heartbreakingly sad nature.

James Brown’s ‘People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul’ is nicely used as a sort of “theme”; elsewhere reasonably familiar if oldish [so good then] pop tunes are nicely used in a rather ironic way. There are a fair number of areas in which Kravkitz has excelled, showing her already to be a quite assured filmmaker indeed. I look forward to her next. But for now we have the surprisingly rich and very well crafted Blink Twice, which when it come down to it is essentially a slightly more upmarket twist on one of horror and action’s more disreputable subgenres – but it’s a subgenre some of us have no shame in really liking.

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