At The Movies: An island getaway goes awry in Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut Blink Twice

Blink Twice (M18)

103 minutes, opens on Aug 22
★★★★☆

The story: Waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and co-worker Jess (Alia Shawkat) crash a party held by tech mogul Slater (Channing Tatum). There is chemistry between Frida and Slater, so when the billionaire invites the women to vacation on his private island, Frida agrees. There, they meet Slater’s close male friends, as well as a group of women invited to the event. Everyone slips into a sybaritic routine of poolside cocktails, fine wines and exquisite food, but Frida is troubled by signs that not everything is as it seems.

It is a tale as old as time: Woman meets man, man wins trust of woman, and terror ensues.

That framework has been used in brutal suspense-action thrillers such as the aptly named Revenge (2017) by French film-maker Coralie Fargeat and the Oscar-winning psychological drama Promising Young Woman (2020) by British film-maker Emerald Fennell.

Actress Zoe Kravitz (The Batman, 2022) makes a remarkably assured debut as Blink Twice’s director and co-writer. She joins Fargeat and Fennell as female film-makers using the language of action and horror to talk about violence, in particular as it is inflicted on women.

The first half of the film is built as an idealised romance. Here, Kravitz leans hard on the tropes – Frida is a pauper meeting a handsome prince. She is wined and dined, and swept off her feet.

The odd details that threaten to burst her bubble arrive subtly – this is not a film of jump scares. Rather, the troubling discoveries add to a mounting sense of unease. By the final act, that tension is released in a well-earned burst of violence.

British actress Ackie (Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker, 2022) gives a brilliant performance as the woman who has to learn to undo her programming if she is to survive.

However, Kravitz falters in her use of black comedy. Shawkat, as Frida’s pal, is the comic foil who lightens the mood, but her bits feel out of place. The story cries out for mordant humour, spread lightly throughout.

Likewise, the dialogue is mostly forgettable, save for a couple of trenchant monologues about the internet lynch mobs. As Slater says, the mob never forgives, but once they find a new target for their wrath, they will forget.

Blink Twice can be read as a comment about the gender power imbalance, domestic violence and the oppression that disadvantaged groups suffer to support a few white men at the top of the pyramid.

And as in the HBO dystopian series Westworld (2016 to 2022), it is a cautionary tale about nauseatingly rich tech bros on a power trip. Their dream world will be a utopia for themselves and their Silicon Valley friends, with the side effect of making everyone else miserable.

To Kravitz’s credit, these themes present themselves without didacticism. In her hands, all that matters is that Frida makes it out alive.

Hot take: A dream vacation on a private island becomes a nightmare for a woman blinded by love.