GENRE | Don't 'Blink Twice' – Zoë Kravitz Seduces An Island Getaway

"Blink twice if I'm in danger."

Amazon MGM Studios / Warner Bros. Pictures

Talented actress Zoë Kravitz, daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, makes her ambitious directorial debut in the sinister psychological thriller, Blink Twice (originally titled Pussy Island), doubling as a disorienting contemporary "eat the rich" critique of abusive power in the vein of recent genre films like The Menu or Get Out meets Glass Onion. Exploring issues of sexual violence against women and the performative nature of cancel culture, her mostly single-location film wraps itself in atmospheric horror genre conventions to express some dark material about the casual evil of men.

Starring Channing Tatum (also a producer) and Naomi Ackie as a reclusive, eccentric billionaire tech mogul forced to apologize before resigning from his company and a cocktail waitress who becomes infatuated with him after getting invited to jet off to his secluded private island, Kravitz sets things up fluidly. We meet various friends of the rich from Adria Arjona, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Kyle MacLachlan, and Alia Shawkat as Ackie's best friend.

Good times are had with fun in the sun before a creeping sense of dread and menace starts to reveal itself before Ackie, Arjona, and Shawkwat's characters notice something is amiss but they cannot remember. Scripted by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum, the abuse of power is central to unravelling their razor-sharp exploration of luxurious chaos. It's a slick but sometimes scattered portrait of the corrosiveness duality of wealth and privilege that deftly balances different tones well.

Blink Twice proves to be a thoughtful, thrilling cinematic rumination on our current gender politics masquerading as a fantasy island vacation, but it's almost too neat and tidy in how it wraps its searing themes about the toxic culture of performative actions against dangerous men. Tatum, Ackie, and Arjona are all different degrees of menacingly captivating. While it does not quite stick the landing, the ambitious Kravitz clearly and confidently knows exactly what she's doing and the kind of film she's making.


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