No Substance #196: Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice
The original title of Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice was Pussy Island. It’s a great title, better than Blink Twice, but it’s not surprising that it wasn’t used. Distributors and cinemas were reluctant, but more importantly, according to Kravitz, women were turned off by the title. It’s a shame, but given that Blink Twice is very much a film about the experiences of women, told from a woman’s perspective, and made by by a female director, it seems like a reasonable decision.
Blink Twice is centred around Frida (Naomi Ackie), a frustrated waitress who makes animal themed nails. She is stuck in a bad job, living in a bad apartment, and has a bad crush on billionaire celebrity, Slater King (Channing Tatum). King will be at one of the events she is working at, and in an attempt to meet him, she saves up the cash to buy two tickets to his event, one for her and one for her friend, Jess (Alia Shawkat). One thing leads to another and Frida meets King, strikes up a connection, and is invited to his private island at the end of the night. On the island, she and Jess give up their phones and move into bungalows where all their needs are seen to, from clothes to bedding to perfume. These needs are seen to by an old woman (Maria Elena Olivares) who kills snakes with a machete. It’s the first indication to Frida that perhaps, just perhaps, not everything is right on this island, but then the decadence and drugs kick in, and she forgets about all that for a time.
At the centre of Blink Twice is Channing Tatum’s charming, sinister Slater King. The billionaire mogul was the subject of a scandal some years before and took a step back from his successful tech company. He has since gone into therapy, publicly apologised, and donated generously to charities. If it all sounds familiar it’s because it is. King is made up from dozens of rich men who have misused their power and wealth, gotten called out, and retreated into private life, only to emerge again in public with a trained look of sorrow on their face and an apology that sounds more and more hollow the more they say it. Just as in real life, you never think King is truly sorry, or regrets what he is done. More likely, he regrets being caught, and having to change his life, or allow it to be scrutinised. It is better to forget than to forgive, King argues. We never really forgive, anyhow. We just forget. We forget the terrible things that these men have done and continue to work with them, indulge them, and maintain relationships with them.
Kravitz’s film isn’t subtle and doesn’t have many surprises. You know Frida and Jess shouldn’t go to the island. You know something weird is going on. Christian Slater has a panama hat, after all. Frida wakes up with no memory of the night, but for a few flashes. She and the other women are running. But what, they ask at one point, are they running from? There’s no prizes for guessing, but that’s not really the point. Blink Twice is angry criticism of those rich men who seem to portray themselves as redeemed, who use their power to take advantage of women, and who think it is their right to do so. The film spares no-one, not even those who are bystanders, or who might not understand what they have been invited to be part of. A special place Hell, Channing’s King says at one stage, is reserved for those who do nothing either way, who neither take part, nor help, who just stand by and never act.
What makes Blink Twice work is, simply put, Kravitz. Everything in the film is pitch perfect, from the performances, to the script, to the pacing. It’s an impressive first film, one that never lags, never lets up, and hits all its reveals at the right moments throughout. It’s tight from the opening to the close. In some ways, it reminded me of Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. I think Fennell’s film is a little more complex, and a little more ambitious, largely due to the ending, but both she and Kravitz are exploring thae same themes of abuse that women suffer and the lack of consequences for the men who are its perpetrators. There’s an anger in both films, though Kravitz offers more of the revenge fantasy than Fennell did at the end, and could be argued to be more of a crowd pleaser.
Still, all in all, a really fine debut.
Ben
(Ben Peek is the author The Godless, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, and Dead Americans and Other Stories, amongst others. His next book will be The Red Labyrinth. His short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Nightmare, Polyphony, and Overland, as well as various Year’s Best Books. He’s the creator of the psychogeography ‘zine The Urban Sprawl Project. He also wrote an autobiographical comic called Nowhere Near Savannah, illustrated by Anna Brown. He lives in Sydney, Australia.)