Blink Twice, Zoë Kravitz's Directorial Debut, Is a Style-Over-Substance Film

There are certain lessons about other people that we're all taught: Don't talk to strangers; don't trust people you meet on the internet; don't get on a shady billionaire's private jet and fly to his private island. You'd think that last one would be the easiest to follow, and yet, by the middle of Blink Twice, the twisty new thriller from rookie director Zoë Kravitz, cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and reality TV star Sarah (Adria Arjona) find themselves wondering what the hell they were thinking by getting on that plane.

The original title of this movie was supposed to be the much more provocative Pussy Island. To be clear, there are no kitty cats on the Mexican island retreat of disgraced tech mogul Slater King (Channing Tatum). There's a gorgeous hacienda-style mansion, a beautiful pool, gourmet meals, bottles upon bottles of wine, and lots and lots of drugs — to be taken only with intention, of course. There are also venomous snakes (don't worry, they're being taken care of), creepily smiling groundskeepers baring machetes (for the snakes, you see), and a mysterious perfume made from the local flowers.

What there isn't, however, is any connection to the outside world. After meeting Slater at a gala they snuck into, Frida and her coworker/roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) surrender their phones and other worldly possessions and join the billionaire's entourage on the island. They traipse around in uniform white bathing suits and dresses, days spent lounging by the pool smoking "big fat blunts," and nights spent raving under the stars on a cocktail of designer drugs. It all starts to blur together. "What day is it?" becomes a common refrain.
Naturally, something sinister lurks under the surface. Jess goes missing — only Frida seems to notice, and Sarah, an accidental badass thanks to her stint on Hot Survival Babes, finds the missing girl's lighter but can't remember ever having met her. As they work to uncover the truth, restore their memories, and escape Slater's decadent, monotonous paradise, they find that the real snakes are not the ones slithering on the ground, and the deepest, darkest secrets are more debauched and horrific than they expected.

Scripted by Kravitz herself along with E.T. Feigenbaum, Blink Twice takes pleasure in upending expectations through its character and plot dynamics. Arjona, for instance, fresh off another twisty comedy-thriller in Hit Man, transforms Sarah from an aloof bikini babe to an appropriately paranoid survivalist as the film progresses. There is occasional comedy in watching her and Frida, who is well-acted by Ackie but occasionally feels like a mere audience surrogate, navigate the dumbassery of their fellow vacationers, who can come off as a bit stock and indistinguishable. (That's not to say the cast, which also includes Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Geena Davis, and Kyle MacLachlan in supporting roles, isn't stacked.) But Kravitz and Feigenbaum have a bad habit of letting important character details drop in mid-conversation like hints in a role-playing game and never bringing them up again — Frieda suddenly mentioning her mother's near-death experience, for instance. Perhaps it's meant to puncture the idyllic vacation haze and hint at darkness beneath, but to me, it just felt like clumsy writing.

The film wears several recent cinematic influences on its sleeve, taking the mystery-on-a-billionaire 's-island premise from Glass Onion, the luxury destination setting from The White Lotus, and its conspiratorial tone from Get Out. Tarantino obviously inspired its blood-soaked finale. Yet it's giallo, the visually sumptuous, frequently gory Italian mystery genre, that the film feels particularly indebted to. Certain story elements, particularly the female protagonist playing detective, come straight out of Dario Argento's original Suspiria. Stylish cinematography and bold colors — the burgundy walls of the hacienda and the crisp whites worn by the tourists — also call back to the genre. Kravitz and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra frequently shift the camera's focus and use off-axis, rotating shots to create a blurry, atmospheric effect that leaves us as drunk and muddled as the islanders.
Those genre inspirations make the film's tame approach to revealing the island's true nature a bit disappointing. Tatum, taking direction from his fiancée, plays off his affable persona as the billionaire Slater. He's suave, handsome, health-conscious, and a just little bit dopey — more Jack Dorsey than Elon Musk. Once the mask comes off in the third act, however, we watch that studied charm vanish, leisure class ennui replaced by unrepentant, nihilistic villainy. Thanks to the notoriety of similar rich, monstrous figures like Jeffrey Epstein, there is obvious precedent in current events for much of Slater's wrongdoing — and indeed, the studio has issued a content warning online relating to its "depictions of violence — including sexual violence."

For a movie so clearly drawing on such depravity, Kravitz struggles to face up to the matter. The scenes that do touch on sexual violence approach the depiction of gendered power imbalance with little beyond implication, with the nature of the violence seemingly banal and blunt rather than conspiratorial and ritual. There is, in fact, very little in terms of sexual content in Blink Twice, consensual or otherwise, or even nudity. This isn't La Piscine; the swimsuits stay on. It's surprisingly tame for a movie that once had the word "pussy" in its title. This is not to say the film should necessarily have had more or less sexual content or that Kravitz's choice of subtlety is incorrect — there are no doubts as to what the men are doing to the women here. It's more to say that a filmmaker shouldn't be afraid to shock the audience if it's called for. Maybe that's asking too much of a mainstream Hollywood film. Then again, with the entertainment industry so plagued by systemic sexual predation yet so ineffective at actually dealing with it, maybe a shock would do some good. We should neither desire nor expect to be shielded from the horrors of reality in the media we consume.

Blink Twice is an impressive, entertaining first feature, one that's not as indulgent as films by actors can often be. Kravitz has learned well from her time on film sets, and her skill with the camera announces a confident new directorial voice. I just hope that next time, she has the confidence to really go for broke.

Blink Twice. Starring Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona and Kyle MacLachlan. Directed by Zoë Kravitz. Written by Zoë Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum. 102 minutes. Rated R. Opens Friday, August 23; check for showtimes at miaminewtimes.com/miami/movietimes.