Blink Twice
review by Bobby Blakey
Zoe Kravitz has had an impressive career in front of the camera and is now trying her hands behind the camera as co-writer and director for her film Blink Twice. The film features a great cast including Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Alia Shawkat, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater, Kyle MacLachlan and Geena Davis. Could this film bring something memorable to the genre or will it be something you prefer to forget?
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Blink Twice follows tech billionaire Slater King who meets cocktail waitress Frida at his fundraising gala, and sparks fly. He invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise. Wild nights blend into sun-soaked days and everyone's having a great time. No one wants this trip to end, but as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. There is something wrong with this place. She’ll have to uncover the truth if she wants to make it out of this party alive.
Heading into this film there had been some great buzz about Kravitz debut directing feature and I can say she kicked all kinds of ass bringing it together. It is a good film that, while not without its faults, manages to be something that felt fresher and more interesting than I thought it would. The trailers were perfect feeding you enough into to get you interested while telling you nothing whatsoever and that is the best way to head into this film.
The story dives right into the mystery with little things stacking up prior to them heading to the island and further builds chaos and strangeness until the violent end. As it plays out it brings together a wide variety of characters, each with their own quirks and memorable personalities even if they aren’t all wholly necessary to the bigger story. I get why they injected these people in, but I felt that at times there was
a lot of seeming narrative building with some of them and goes nowhere. Thankfully there is so much more to chew on to keep it from completely going off the rails.
As the story unfolds it does a great job at adding more questions than answers that further sucks you into the insanity unfolding. There are times that it initially felt like there were too many montages of their drug fueled parties, but once it gets to the reveal of things it makes sense to why. For anything that might not have fully worked in its direction and sometimes believability the twist and turns to the ending more than make up for it. It is the kind of thing you may not see coming and offers up some great connections to the story it’s been telling without being obvious in the best way possible.
The entire cast is great with Naomi Ackie bringing a brilliant range of emotions to the role that makes you fully invest into her fears, desires, and struggle. Tatum is the other standout with him bringing a sinister and charming persona that we don’t usually see from him. It’s often times hard to tell which one it actually is, and he brings his A game and chews up every scene. Their chemistry and dysfunction are the heart and dangers to this film and gives fans everything they could want.
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I enjoyed it throughout, but the ending knocked it out of the park and fully empowered the message it conveys throughout. I think there are a lot of underlying social elements here that will connect differently by everyone which is why I didn’t delve that much into it. I think everyone should have their own experience and it is a journey worth taking.
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Decide for yourself and check out Blink Twice in theaters and premium digital now from Amazon MGM Studios.
