The original title of Blink Twice was supposed to be Pussy Island, but the Motion Picture Association of America wouldn’t allow it. While they can really be no fun sometimes at the MPAA, the truth is that neither title really fits this incredibly disturbing thriller. I think any fitting title would give away its killer plot twist. (Perhaps you’ve heard about the trigger warnings that precede this film. I’m not a fan of trigger warnings, and this movie is that much more potent if you go in cold like I did, but in this case I see why it’s there.) This #MeToo thriller with shades of Groundhog Day, Midsommar, and M. Night Shyamalan lies somewhere between Don’t Worry Darling and Get Out, and is much closer to the latter’s greatness.
Accused of unspecified professional misconduct, billionaire tech mogul Slater King (Channing Tatum) has taken a leave of absence, promised to enter therapy, and donated gobs of money to charity. At a high-class fundraiser for his own foundation, he spots a waitress named Frida (Naomi Ackie) and impulsively invites her and her fellow waitress and roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) on a getaway to his own private island. The other guests include Slater’s new CEO (Christian Slater), his executive assistant (Geena Davis), his therapist (Kyle MacLachlan), his personal chef (Simon Rex), an embittered former sitcom actor (Haley Joel Osment), a reality-show star (Adria Arjona) who behaves like a bitch to everyone, and a cryptocurrency bro (Levon Hawke) whom everyone behaves like a bitch to. Frida initially can’t believe she’s in this tropical paradise, but then she and the other guests start waking up with bruises and black eyes that they can’t account for. Jess disappears shortly after saying that something’s wrong with the island, and everybody else swears that she was never there.
This is the first movie directed or written by actress Zoë Kravitz. I’ve now seen the film twice, and I can say that the twist is foreshadowed in diabolically clever ways through the early going. Kravitz may not have the last ounce of Jordan Peele’s ability to scatter off-color details across normal life, but she’s quite good at it nevertheless. The indigenous servants who smile woodenly at the guests are a sharp touch, as is Slater’s repeated query “Are you having a good time?”, which has a strangely pacifying effect on Frida and others. There’s a beautiful and creepy recurring bit where the women run through the estate at night wearing diaphanous white robes. One of them stops to ask, “Why are we running?” They get an answer to that that they don’t like.
The British leading lady Ackie (who portrayed Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody a couple years back) does some good work playing someone who’s utterly terrified but has to pretend that she’s partying. Still, the best performance here belongs to Arjona as a woman who bitterly notes that cancel culture has caused her reality show to exclude her, but then changes her tune once she starts recovering her memories. The one false note is Tatum, who is Kravitz’ current boyfriend. He’s good at silliness and lightness, not at playing a man who’s hiding a sinister secret behind his charm.
That’s a minor flaw, though. The plot behind the guests’ missing memory turns out to be more evil than you can imagine, the sort of evil that makes you want to curl up into a ball, and it’s worse for being so ordinary. The villains here, who wish to keep their secret on the island, are far scarier than any serial killer or would-be world conqueror in any of this season’s films. The presence of 1980s stalwarts Davis, MacLachlan, and Slater brings home the idea that this evil has been going on a long time, rather than being the invention of some depraved youngsters. The movie opens with our tech bro telling the press, “I’ve said sorry so many times that the word has lost meaning,” and what happens after that illustrates just how easily the word “sorry” comes to someone who feels no contrition. The strength of Kravitz’ filmmaking isn’t in individual bits of brilliance but becomes apparent when you step back and see the big picture. This is a rare movie that becomes more horrifying once you know what’s up. I have some issues with the way Frida gets out of her predicament, but I do admire its ingenuity.
A lot of what right-wingers call “cancel culture” is really just people remembering the bad things that people in power have done to the relatively powerless. The villain of Blink Twice manages to short-circuit this in a particularly cruel way. The film tells us that forgetting is how we give bad men a pass, and the best way to hold them accountable is to remember what they’ve done. It’s always a good time to do that, and the opening of this film makes it even better.
Blink Twice
Starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum. Directed by Zoë Kravitz. Written by Zoë Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum. Rated R.
