‘Blink Twice’ Review
Zoë Kravitz understands her actors, story, and visual landscape. This is a confident entry in what’s sure to be the first of many noteworthy films by her.
Warning: Spoilers may be included.
Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut Blink Twice is a sardonic look at male and female relationships in the age of the tech billionaire. Starring a magnetic Naomi Ackie (Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Small Axe) and a quicksilver Channing Tatum, it's a fever dream of white patriarchal hegemony couched in non-stop blasé good times. Think The Stepford Wives (1975) meets Get Out (2017) with a splash of the banal happiness of a 1960s TWA commercial. Colors pop like a Préfète Duffaut painting and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra tells as much of the story with his use of color as the words do.
The film opens with Ackie’s character Frida working an aimless waitress job. Like most Gen Zers and millennials, she’s attached to her phone, constantly scrolling. Someone who she frequently keeps tabs on is handsome bad boy tech billionaire Slater, Tatum, who’s had to apologize to the world for something heinous he’s done. He professes to be reformed and is happy he’s turned over a new leaf.
One night, Frida and her friend Jess, a tenacious Alia Shawkat, work a high-end party at an art gallery. Frida meets her Prince Charming Slater and in the blink of an eye is whisked off to a gorgeous private island. There she meets a handful of other young women who are also given dresses to wear that look like Midsommar offerings. Night after night is drinking and partying, an endless loop of hedonism until Jess gets bit by a snake and disappears. Not only does she vanish, no one but Frida can seem to remember her. The story really kicks it up a notch once Frida is on a quest to find her friend.
Some of the cuts to different scenes are dizzying, leaving us feeling just as disoriented as Frida. By the end of the film, the transitions reveal things more graphic in nature and also emphasize the growing assuredness of our protagonist Frida.
Kravitz understands her actors, story, and visual landscape. This is a confident entry in what’s sure to be the first of many noteworthy films by her. At the end of the second act, some of the scenes become a little redundant but make sense when we realize what the payoff is.
Another vital element is sound. The use of silence and the stark crispness of certain sounds really help build the suspense in certain scenes. This interlaced with a chimerical score by Chanda Dancy enhances the nightmare imagery of the societal renaissance tale.
Kravitz co-wrote this script with E.T. Feigenbaum. They both wrote for the High Fidelity television series and this marks the feature writing debut for both. The dialogue is rife with Gen Z vernacular and witticisms. Structurally, the story leads us into the abyss of man’s dark soul, with the female characters bonding and breaking through to see the light. The message of women being slaves to men’s whims is reinforced by dipping into subliminals about American slavery.
As opposed to many 60s and 70s films, including The Stepford Wives, this film ends with an optimism that can be associated with the constant use of social media and playing video games. It’s wishful thinking but also a possibility in these capitalistic, technology-dominated days.
Other cast members include an exceptional Adria Arjona, who’s fresh off of indie circuit darling and Netflix hit Hit Man, as Sarah, Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, Geena Davis, Kyle MacLachlan, Simon Rex, Levon Hawke, Liz Caribel, and Trew Mullen. The mixture of signature old-school actors with the latest up-and-coming actors only reinforces the film’s theme of things happening in a cyclical nature.
This Amazon MGM Studios release hits theaters on August 23, 2024.
Sonya Alexander started off her career training to be a talent agent. She eventually realized she was meant to be on the creative end and has been writing ever since. As a freelance writer she’s written screenplays, covered film, television, music and video games and done academic writing. She’s also been a script reader for over twenty years. She's a member of the African American Film Critics Association and currently resides in Los Angeles.
