Film Review: ‘Blink Twice’ nails the vibes, misses on the substance

Picture this: you arrive at a hotel somewhere in the islands. You’ve just been on a plane for five-ish hours, an endeavor that’s left you with a crick in your neck and your face on the verge of a massive breakout. The villa looks beautiful, but you’re tired, you’re cranky, and you need a shower. You don’t want to be that person and ruin everyone else’s good time, but you can’t help but think, it’s a little too hot here. The shower pressure sucks. The bed isn’t as comfortable as mine at home.

Maybe it’s a little unfair, and maybe you’ll feel different after a nap. But you can’t help but think: “This place sucks.”

That’s the first thing Sarah (Adria Arjona), the star of a survival reality franchise, says when she steps foot onto tech billionaire Slater King’s (Channing Tatum) private island and sees his massive vacation home. But Sarah is more accustomed to luxury than island newcomers Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat), who welcome the decadence that Slater’s oasis provides. But even they start to feel uneasy after a while, growing just weary enough of the monotony of debauchery to ask – am I really having fun here?

It’s a sentiment that can sometimes rear its ugly head during a vacation, and “Blink Twice” –  a new psychological thriller from first-time filmmaker Zoe Kravitz – spins that feeling out to terrifying proportions. The paradoxical malaise that vacation sometimes brings is a great backdrop for a psychological thriller, and a smart move on Kravtiz’ part (she co-wrote the screenplay with E.T. Feigenbaum). “Blink Twice” doesn’t quite coalesce by its end, rushing through the broader implications of its climax. But its structure and design is incredibly compelling, at its best when it capitalizes on that feeling of desperation when you’re trying to convince yourself everything is okay when it so clearly is not.

Frida and Jess don’t fit in with the rest of Slater’s crew, filled with chefs, actors, entrepreneurs and the like. They’re both struggling cocktail waitresses, and Frida has developed a bit of a crush on Slater since she briefly met him while working at a benefit a year before the film begins. This year, she’s working the benefit again and determined to not miss her chance. After another run-in with Slater, Frida scores big – she and Jess have been invited to his famous private island.

We first meet Frida while she scrolls mindlessly through her phone, the camera alternating between shots of her screen and close-ups of her dazed, slightly frayed expression as she swipes through distraction after distraction. When she lands on a video of Slater giving a public apology (we never learn what exactly for), she stops, mesmerized – it’s the first time she’s paused on a video for more than a few seconds during the whole montage. She’s suddenly interrupted by a loud bang. It’s her roommate, Jess, knocking on the door. For the first time, you realize Frida has been sitting on the toilet for the entirety of the sequence.

“Blink Twice” is characterized by this kind of editing and sound design, working overtime to create an often funny, often creepy, jarring sense of disorientation. On the island, everything is a bit too loud, from the “glug-glug” of the champagne that seems to be constantly pouring into Frida’s glass, to the slice of a knife cutting fruit. Time doesn’t feel real, the tedium of drugs and alcohol and sun bleeding together – one moment, Frida is putting on perfume in the morning, the next she’s running through a moonlit field in an ecstasy-induced haze.

There’s a strangeness to that disorientation, but it’s also a little sexy, a little dangerous. Tatum’s casting as Slater, as the orchestrator of this trip, is really the film’s best weapon. Earlier this year, Tatum starred in “Fly Me to the Moon,” a film that had no sense of his strengths as a movie star. But “Blink Twice” takes everything that’s appealing about Tatum and uses it against you – he’s simply easy to like, and that natural allure obfuscates what’s going on just out of frame. People – workers, or maybe someone else – are always walking blurred through the background of shots. Hands are always giving drinks to Frida, but you never see who those hands belong to. One of Slater’s friends, Vic (Christian Slater), is missing a finger. Another, Tom (Haley Joel Osment) is constantly eating out of a giant bowl of eggs. The vibes are off – but the camera never lingers on any of it for too long.

Ackie has a face tailormade for slowly coming to the realization that something is horribly wrong, with the ability to exaggerate her expression in ways that lend themselves to peril. Her penchant for exaggeration works just as well when she’s drawn to Slater and all his slippery charm as it does when she’s terrified of him, when his good nature slides into something more sinister. In one scene, Frida attempts to school her features into something more neutral (something at which she fails tremendously), trying to keep Slater off her tail as she begins to fall out from under his spell. The quiet confidence that defines Slater suddenly feels laden with dread, his small smile tightening. The words, “You okay?” are less of a question and more of a threat.

As what’s happening on the island becomes clearer, Kravitz doesn’t shy away from confronting that reality head on, and your mileage may vary on how relentless the film’s climax is in what it’s willing to show to the audience. But it’s what happens after that climax that comes up a bit short, a problem that’s furthered by thin characterization throughout the film, particularly when it comes to Frida. The film’s final moments feel positioned in a celebratory way, but the truth of the matter feels much bleaker than perhaps “Blink Twice” is really willing to reckon with.

The post Film Review: ‘Blink Twice’ nails the vibes, misses on the substance appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta .