“Blink Twice” follows Frida (Naomi Ackie), a cocktail waitress invited by business tycoon Slater King (Channing Tatum) to his private island for a once-in-a-lifetime getaway. It’s all party and sun-soaked fun until strange things start to happen. She must uncover the truth before things truly fall apart.
Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut “Blink Twice” is bold.
It puts you in a position where you expect things to be as is until it envelops you into something sinister. There is confidence in Kravitz’s command in the story since she was able to pull off sleek choices for a narrative that is uneven at times, to an extent that the shortcomings become tolerable. A sequence in the first 15 minutes shows this: a long take introducing the ensemble is tastefully done without being too proud of itself, but something that is more in service of telling their eventual power dynamics.
Cinematography and editing are sleek and efficiently used throughout, except for that single scene halfway through the film that felt like a big ambush for those unaware. I love a film that shocks, but I can’t help but feel alarmed by Kravitz’s presentation of abuse on-screen. It’s always dangerous to depict cruelty with too much style since most of the time, you’re just craving for that reaction that is off-guard.
“Blink Twice” tries to redeem itself after that moment but the scar can’t be removed. For a film with a hard-hitting message on the dangers of power and our nature to forget those who oppress us, it can be scary that some of its parts will be misunderstood by the general audience because of how it was presented.
“Blink Twice” is now showing in cinemas from Warner Bros. Pictures.
Featured images from Warner Bros. Pictures.
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