Joyce Glasser reviews Blink Twice (August 23, 2024) Cert 15, 103 mins. In cinemas
To say that Zoë Kravitz, the daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, was brought up in a show biz milieu is an understatement, so it is hardly surprising that with her talent and good looks, Ms Kravitz became a successful actress. Nor is it surprising that in her mid-thirties, she joins other actresses turning producers, writers and directors to gain more control over their work and a more feminist view point.
The result, Blink Twice, is an ambitious, impressively directed, if less impressively conceived and written first feature. It’s a horror film exploiting a very topical subject.
The film opens on a lizard on a rock that is hard to place when we cut to cramped digs in a crowded city and a bit of irony that complements what is essentially one long nightmare, shot in a dreamlike stance. Exhausted, underpaid cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) looks in the mirror and says, ‘I need a vacation.’
No sooner is the vacation wished for than Frida hears about a fundraising party being thrown by charismatic tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum). Frida and her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) show up at his party as cocktail waitresses, but they switch their uniforms for low cut, clinging gowns and high heels before long.
Having apologised on social media for his (undetailed) bad behaviour, King announces he is starting the Slater King Foundation and publicises the fact he is in therapy. The mood is upbeat, and no one questions the nature of the bad behaviour or the nature of the therapy which, it turns out, is less about outing a repressed past then chemically erasing it from memory.
Frida and Jess mingle with the guests as Jess catches King’s eye. The two chat flirtatiously until, as the party winds down, King invites Frida and Jess to join a group of women and male work colleagues for an island holiday. Enter images of other private island owners like Richard Branson or even Jeffrey Epstein.
Fortunately for all the spontaneous women, no suitcases are needed and phones are useless. Frida and Jess are shown into identical, sterile, but luxurious rooms in a huge motel-like complex where perfectly fitted uniforms are spread out on the beds. The men dress normally but for daywear, the women are given halter tops and white underpants over which is a transparent white wraparound skirt. It’s all very cult-like.
And cult-like, day after day there are lavish meals, exotic cocktails, psychedelic drugs and then some exotic perfumes that become increasingly important. The women partake in unedifying conversation and pool parties in the presence of men like Christian Slater’s executive, Levon Hawke’s tech guru, Haley Joel Osment’s nerd and Simon Rex’s self-absorbed, experimental chef. None of the women seem to mind that these men are unaccompanied by their girlfriends or wives.
In fact none of this dream holiday seems to bother Frida until her encounters with an enigmatic maid (María Elena Olivares) who shouts incomprehensible babble at her as though her life depends on it, while killing poisonous yellow snakes, indigenous to the island.
Jess is more circumspect, growing bored of the hedonism and expressing her suspicions that something is wrong. Frida cannot deny it when a sauce stain on her dress disappears, dirt appears under her nails.
The audience is way ahead of Jess let alone Frida. Something unnatural is going on, but why did these women, strangers all, agree to fly off to an unidentified location with a bunch of rich men they don’t know? Bernie Madoff pulled off the biggest fraud in corporate history, but he couldn’t have done it without the willingness of thousands of investors to believe in fairytales instead of asking questions.
The cast, in particular Tatum and Adria Arjona as Frida’s accomplice, Sarah, are terrific, but Kravitz lets our minds wander too long before she releases the suspense and drip feeds us hints to create a sense of foreboding.
Foreboding turns to fear and it is well directed with dramatic camerawork and an appropriate soundtrack. The 15 rating might be the result of a decision to focus on control and solving a mystery, than about sex, although there is violence.
But there are problems with the film, one of which might have less to do with the story than the budget. While the men allegedly go fishing for dinner, why do all the women passively agree to remain around the pool? Surely the point of going to an island is to be surrounded by beautiful ocean, yet not one of the scenes is shot on the beach and no one seems to miss a beach party or scuba diving.
The film is released after Michaela Coel’s dark, date-rape drama series I May Destroy You, or Jodie Comer’s Prima Farcie but, propitiously, during the trial of Dominique Pélicot, a retired French businessman who drugged his own wife for the benefit of himself and other men.
Mrs Pélicot wants the law changed to state explicitly that a rape is committed if the perpetrator uses drugs to “impair the judgment of the victim.” But you have to worry about the judgment of grown women who, with no questions asked, throw caution and common sense to the wind as willingly as Madoff’s victims.
