Blink Twice is a flawed however secure calling card for actor-turned director Zoe Kravitz, owing a lot to movies which have come earlier than and tread well-versed territory. It’s a movie that sees two waiters at an elite company swept underneath the spell of “cancelled” celeb Slater-King – Kravitz deploying trendy popular culture cancellation expertly with Channing Tatum revelling in embracing the customarily faux, manufactured apologies that come out solely when a celeb is caught doing one thing improper reasonably once they really did one thing improper, as one in all Hollywood’s heartthrobs himself, he shines right here. When the 2 ladies discover themselves on Slater King’s island that guarantees the artwork of therapeutic by means of forgetting, it quickly turns into obvious that not all is because it appears and so they could have questioned right into a entice that they can’t escape from.
Calling to thoughts Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Fear Darling and different current, extra critically acclaimed movies, like Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Blink Twice is extra a “here, look how good I am as a director” than movie in its personal proper because it reveals how nicely Kravitz can grasp the cliches and the Hitchcockian stage of suspense elevating that will get underneath your pores and skin from the phrase go. It’s a #MeToo thriller that lures you in, seductively and intrugingly, however feels prefer it ends simply because it will get began – with the ending creating a way of energy induced by the 1% above us all. Naomi Ackie and Ali Shawkat are caught in its net, social gathering ladies who benefit from the countless hedonism at first however when issues go improper, Shawkat’s Jess goes lacking and solely Ackie’s Frida can bear in mind her – all her new associates have utterly forgotten her in any respect. Solely what stays is the knife left behind her toilet mirror that Frida remembers Jess telling her to cover someplace, and the data that Jess was bitten by a venomous snake. There’s one thing comparable at work right here that Blink Twice deploys expertly.
Co-writer and director Kravitz (working with ET Feigenbaum on the script) revels in elevating the stress. Sound and color are emphasised, it’s clear that color is essential from the second you see that each one the women on the island are assigned the identical garments – and each sound looks like a gunshot in order that when the precise gunshots occur, it looks like a firecracker. We all know one thing is amiss earlier than Frida does, and the remainder of the movie is spent questioning when Frida will catch as much as the viewers, it’s Jess that does first, poor, poor Jess – however you’ll be able to see how nicely Frida is swept underneath its spell. Lastly, one thing good has occurred to her for as soon as in her life – and he or she doesn’t need it to finish. Days change into uncountable, and all contact with the surface world is gone.
Blink Twice looks like a visible triumph with marvelling colors and pinpoint comedic and motion timing – the scene within the trailers the place Frida hides behind a desk that King scouts out with pressure is masterfully timed and one of many tensest scenes you’ll see in any movie this yr. It feels a bit like we’ve seen all of it earlier than, however there’s a purpose why this components is so standard – and Kravitz daringly has one thing to say.
