Seeing “Blink Twice” won't make you sleep at night

The story of a mysterious billionaire who summons a group of strangers to a remote location with sinister ulterior motives is one of the most beloved tropes of contemporary culture: Glass Onion, A Murder at the End of the World, Nine Perfect Strangers, Death’s Roulette, the episode The Viewing from Cabinet of Curiosities, and so on are all classic examples. It's easy to understand why. In the age of influencers and billionaire celebrities, receiving an exclusive invitation to a dream location is not only something that can happen but a fortune many aspire to. But we also live in an era where the truth about "industry parties" has emerged, in the age of devastating scandals involving Jeffrey Epstein, Weinstein, and P.Diddy, where these figures are revealed to be even worse than one could have imagined, involved in every sort of conspiracy and blackmail revolving around sexual abuse and drugs. They also justify the resentment felt toward an increasingly wealthy, parasitic, decadent – and morally corrupt – elite. For this reason, Zoë Kravitz could not have chosen a better time for the release of her directorial and screenwriting debut with the film Blink Twice, which is about two women with no particular talents who manage to get invited to a tech billionaire’s remote island, played by Channing Tatum, for a vacation that soon turns into a nightmare – and what a nightmare it is.

Let’s say it right away: the trigger warning that appears at the start of the film (which essentially concerns a single scene) is absolutely justified. If the film begins as a satirical comedy, midway through the story, it makes a perfect about-face, entering the realm of psychological horror. Let’s just say that from that point onward, the game completely changes: anyone who started thinking it was a dime-a-dozen thriller is now watching a tragically more serious situation. To be honest, expectations for Kravitz's debut were low – beyond her youth, she was better known for being a charismatic actress and a favorite face of contemporary fashion. At first glance, this film could have seemed like a vanity project of a nepo baby, like so many we’ve seen in recent years. Still, Blink Twice is a thriller written and directed with skill and even a certain malice, managing to maintain a clear narrative and guide viewers through a maze of mysteries, amnesia, deliberately elliptical scenes, and terrible plot twists. Not an easy task for a debut director, although she can count on a star-studded cast led by Channing Tatum, Kravitz’s partner, along with Naomi Ackie, Christian Slater, Geena Davis, and Hailey Joel-Osement. As we said, the timing of the film's release is perfect, especially since the all-white outfits worn by the characters during the evening scenes (justified in the film as a personal quirk of the rich host) unintentionally reference P.Diddy’s infamous White Parties, creating the sense that Kravitz herself may be subtly denouncing something.

From a narrative standpoint, Kravitz’s ability to subtly change the tone of voice is truly remarkable. The film begins like many other TV movies we would associate with Netflix today, with a premise that is easily escapist and fairly conventional for modern productions we are flooded with daily through countless streaming channels. Indeed, anyone choosing to watch the film already knows that the mysterious billionaire Slater has some dark secret – yet, the feeling is that he’s a cinematic villain, whose secret is something over-the-top and extravagant, like hunting humans. However, he is revealed to be a much more realistic villain, a hundred times more terrifying. Herein lies the film's strength: just as the audience’s guard is lowered, the story dives into a world of sheer brutality – with a few concessions to believability to make the plot work, which nonetheless doesn't cause any disturbance. While the film’s ending remains relatively positive, the final scene feels like a consolatory, fictional appendix to a story whose original ending would have been wicked to the point of pure nihilism. But there’s enough malice in the film to justify a positive note at the end. One thing is for sure: Zoë Kravitz has proven to be a brave director, unafraid to explore quite dark territory, and if she continues on this path, we’ll be happy to see more of her work behind the camera – even if her first film honestly disturbed us quite a bit.