Blink Twice
Director: Zoë Kravitz
Writer: Zoë Kravitz, E.T. Feigenbaum
Cast: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Alia Shawkat, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Liz Caribel Sierra, Levon Hawke, Trew Mullen, Geena Davis, Kyle MacLachlan
Seen on: 10.2.2025

Content Note: rape, sexualized violence

Plot:
Frida (Naomi Ackie) is a waitress. During one of her gigs at a private party, she meets Slater King (Channing Tatum), gorgeous tech billionaire and quite the charmer. Slater not only notices Frida, there is flirting – and then Frida is invited to accompany him to his private island for a holiday, together with her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat). More of Slater’s friends are coming, too, as well as other pretty women. What starts as the best holiday of her life, becomes strange when Frida realizes that something else is going on on that island.

Blink Twice gives us an interesting premise – and then doesn’t do enough with it (much like Companion that I saw only a few days earlier). It has its moments but ultimately it reenacts the violence it aims to challenge.

[Slight SPOILERS]

That Slater is somewhat too good to be true will come as a surprise to nobody here. That the story probably veers toward sexual violence (and it does), is also not really a plot twist, although the film treats it as such. For the characters, this comes as a shock. For the audience, the horror lies in the way we have to watch the seemingly inevitable. (There is another twist later that I didn’t see coming, probably because it stretches credulity maybe a little too far.)

Unfortunately, Kravitz decided to really show us the violence in detail, maybe to recreate the shock in the audience that the characters had experienced until then. This strategy could have worked if the inscenation had been less sensational, even somewhat titillating. In this extended scene, we become spectators rather than witnesses, and the female characters are victimised through the camera yet again.

There is also very little the film has to say beyond „rich white men can get away with anything“ which is, unfortunately, true, but also it should be the beginning of the analysis, not its end. How do they do it? What mechanisms have they established and are they using? How do other people help them? Ironically, the only moment where this enters even slightly into the picture is when the movie addresses Stacy (Geena Davis), Slater’s personal assistant. That the movie never really wonders about the men involved apart from „they’d all do it if they could“ is disappointing.

The film has good pacing, it builds up its tension well and the cast is terrific, especially Ackie and Tatum. I also really loved the relationship Frida builds with Sarah (Adria Arjona) in particular, but also the other women on the island. Unfortunately, the ending – that should show a way out of oppression and violence – continues it in reversed roles, thus destroying any kind of empowering effect the hard-won victory on the island and the friendship between the women could have had.

Summarizing: could have been more.