‘Blink Twice’ Review: Zoë Kravitz’s Feminist ‘Get Out’ is Righteously Angry and Frustratingly Derivative

To call Blink Twice an updated, feminist version of Get Out carries a lot of implications all at once—it’s a bit obvious, somewhat reductive, and potentially a good selling point, but most of all, it’s fundamentally true and hard to ignore. Following a long line of similar thriller-adjacent properties that have done the same since 2016, the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz has taken major cues from the Jordan Peele school of modern genre films, in which a Twilight Zone-esque premise acts as the sheath for a social horror in touch with the dynamics of the modern world. Whereas Get Out was about the terror brought on by the lingering effects of contemporary racism, Blink Twice sets its sights primarily on misogyny and violence against women, enacted by brazen, entitled men. 

Written by Kravitz as well, Blink Twice has a sense of righteous fury pointed at the types of men like the ones depicted herein—in today’s tense political climate, you could say they’re not too far removed from being a representation of men who think it prudent to foster a culture of controlling women’s bodies with acts like the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Blink Twice’s events may be limited to the confines of the exotic private island where our gaggle of fun-seeking tech bros and their acolytes escape to for days of sunbathing by the pool of nights of elegant dinners and hedonistic drug escapades, but their implications carry more sustained weight in the context of a world more and more afflicted by the scourge of men radicalized by the Andrew Tate ethos of the dehumanization of women (it should be noted the film was originally titled Pussy Island). 

Experiencing this microcosmic lesson of the unyielding danger of a world full of these types of men firsthand is Frida (Naomi Ackie), a cocktail waitress drifting through her life with her coworker, roommate, and friend Jess (Alia Shawkat). The two get the chance of a lifetime when they end up working the fundraising gala for one Slater King (Channing Tatum), a problematic Elon Musk-type tech-world spearhead who’s rounding out his public apology cycle on the media circuit following some unsavory revelations about his personal conduct. After a chance encounter, Frida and Jess find themselves on a private jet the very same night, on their way to Slater’s island with his flock of peers and groupies. It’s a paradise at first, but Frida and Jess’s suspicion that something isn’t quite right inevitably reveals itself to be all too true.

If you’re thinking you can guess the beat-by-beat breakdown of how Blink Twice ticks off its plot obligations, you’d probably be correct. The most underwhelming aspect of Kravitz’s enraged scream of a movie is a stock script that, despite its admirable efforts to blend conflicting tones of dark comedy and suspense and that’s brought to life by a laudable ensemble cast, is far too familiar to truly work on its own accord. Even outside the context of running through familiar beats from the movies it’s directly aping, the general pace and build-up of tension of the situation that Kravitz has devised feels clunky, somehow both plodding and rushed simultaneously. Ominous music cues, foreboding shots of groundskeepers who seem to know things that Frida doesn’t, and sudden flashes of disturbing events overbearingly telegraph to the viewer that something sinister is happening, to the point where you wish the film would just hurry up and get on with it instead of attempting to drag out a thin sense of mystery any further. 

The film’s ultimate reveal is admirably grounded in some sort of relative sense of reality, which sets it apart from many other titles in this same vein. Once the script has shown its entire hand, the menace feels startlingly real and tactile for a film that simultaneously trades in being an often funny, occasionally playful little enigma. But even then, the logistics of the plot are held together by strange, arbitrary rules and conveniences that don’t hold water when evaluating the logic of the story. I’m not one to typically nitpick such logic or plot-holes; that often comes off as nothing more than the most pedantic form of criticism, but when an entire film is built around a sustained sense of drawing out this portentous secret, all the contrivances are brought right to the forefront. 

If nothing else, the extended cast here is dialed-in enough to make you feel like you’re watching something a little more exciting than you actually are. Ackie grounds the narrative and acts as an effective audience surrogate as she tries to uncover the truth about why she and Jess don’t seem to remember anything that happens on the island—why this endless vacation is starting to seem truly endless. They’re accompanied by a few other women in their ranks, most notably Adria Arjona as Sarah, whose role in the plot begins modest but takes a slow, welcome pivot to being an essential player. 

And then there are the men, full of “Hey, that guy!” type actors that are all welcome to see in a feature like this. Tatum fulfills the necessary requirement of undercutting his charm and charisma with that needed bit of threatening aura, but it’s his cronies that I was happy to see back up on the big screen. Everyone here is great even if the script offers a limited amount for them to actually do—Christian Slater, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, and, of course, Simon Rex, fulfilling the promise of his full potential following Red Rocket and The Sweet East. They bring even some of the most monotonous stretches of this to life just by being on screen. 

Additionally, Blink Twice is a great-looking movie. Shot by The Last Black Man in San Francisco cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, every frame is meticulously composed and offers the sensorial experience of getting lost in perpetual days upon days on this island with notable, sleek style choices to boot, like the choice to have the title card pop up for a blink-and-you’ll-miss it half second during the blind of a camera flash, a recurring motif during the remainder of the film. Blink Twice is full of perceptive, intuitive cinematic instincts like this, ones that make you feel like you’re watching a better movie than you actually are. But despite its exacting, unyielding messaging and discerning technical capabilities, Blink Twice feels all too often like it’s looking for its own sense of identity. 

Grade: C

Blink Twice will be released by Amazon MGM only in theaters on August 23.

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Trace Sauveur

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