Movie Review Time
Billionaires aren't the only snakes in strange film Blink Twice
Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum in Blink Twice.
There have been an increasing number of movies critical of the ultra-rich in recent years, including Triangle of Sadness, The Menu, and the Oscar-winning Parasite. But it’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery which the new film Blink Twice most closely resembles, with each featuring a billionaire bringing out a group of people to his private island for nefarious reasons.
The film’s main character is Frida (Naomi Ackie), a cocktail waitress at a space that hosts a variety of private events, including an annual gathering for the tech company owned by Slater King (Channing Tatum). Despite unsavory allegations against him, Frida is enamored with the handsome billionaire, and with the help of her co-worker friend Jess (Alia Shawkat), she manages to get into his inner circle.
Soon, Slater is inviting the two to his island alongside a group that includes Vic (Christian Slater), Sarah (Adriana Arjona), Cody (Simon Rex), Stacy (Geena Davis), Tom (Haley Joel Osment), and more. What at first appears to be the ultimate in luxury starts to turn into a strange experience, with the women all given identical outfits to wear, a den of venomous snakes slithering around the property, and repetitive events leading to the loss of a sense of time.
Directed and co-written by Zoë Kravitz, who’s making her feature film debut in both roles, the film makes no bones about how it views billionaires and their hangers-on. Despite his looks and charming nature, it’s clear from the get-go that Slater is not someone to be trusted. For much of the story, he treats Frida, Jess, and everyone else in the manner of the consummate host, and yet there is a slew of hints that not everything is on the up-and-up.
Kravitz and co-writer E.T. Feigenbaum take their time before letting the other shoe drop, and while a lot of what they show is intriguing, it feels like they’re missing the second act in the three-act structure. The sameness of the group’s activities – laying out by the pool, eating meals, lots of drinking and drugs – becomes wearisome even as Frida starts to investigate the island more intently.
It’s all leading up to a big twist that, without spoiling anything, is confusing and underwhelming at the same time. The implications of the twist would seem to be horrifying, but the actual logistics that would make it a reality don’t appear to have been thought through fully. It also brings up a whole host of questions that wouldn’t exist if Kravitz and her team had tried for a cleaner ending.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Ackie’s performance, but it feels like a step down from her stronger starring role in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody. Tatum is suitably suave and creepy, a bit of a turn for an actor who typically plays the hero. The stacked supporting cast delivers some good performances, most notably Shawkat, Arjona, and Slater.
Blink Twice shows some promise for Kravitz as a technical filmmaker, but she has some refining to do on the storytelling front. The film eventually gets to a decent woman empowerment theme, but the missteps along the way make that argument less strong than it should be.
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Blink Twice opens in theaters on August 23.
