Blink Twice review: Channing Tatum is terrifying in Zoë Kravitz's brutal and brilliant directing debut

It’s rare that you know a film is going to be good from as early as the title card. But from the moment Blink Twice flashed up in a disorientating and literal blink of an eye – so rapid that it could have had a strobe warning – it was clear Zoë Kravitz was cooking with gas.

Blink Twice is the directorial debut from the actress, model, and all-around-cool girl Kravitz, who’s chiefly known for her unparalleled street style and roles in The Batman and Big Little Lies, as well as the TV adaptation of High Fidelity, unjustly cut short after just one season.

The film centres around Frida (Naomi Ackie), a young waitress living with her best friend in Los Angeles. She has recently become obsessed with a tech bro billionaire known as Slater King. Our first look at King, played by Kravitz’s fiancé and 21 Jump Street alum Channing Tatum , is via Frida’s phone. Her social media shows us that King is publicly apologising for something, though it's not clear what.

Then, thanks to the film’s full-tilt pacing, Frida is almost instantly in a room with him; first as a waiter at his charity event and then as a dressed-up party crasher alongside her discerning bestie Jess (Alia Shawkat).

Slater King introduces Frida and the audience to a number of other characters in a purposefully dizzying sequence. This includes the resident “mean girl” and former star of a bikini-themed survival show, Sarah (Adria Arjona), Cody (Simon Rex) who talks about food and wine far too much, a pair of beautiful stoners (Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen), Slater’s polaroid camera-loving right hand man (Christian Slater) and his therapist (Kyle MacLachlan).

Frida and Slater hit it off, so he invites her, Jess and the gang to an exclusive party on his island: no phones and no luggage necessary as all clothes will be provided. As well as copious amounts of booze, he’s also providing heaps of psychedelic drugs – but you have to do them “with intention” (a piece of very believable rich person pop-psychology).

What follows is an intoxicating Edgar Wright-esque blurred sequence of parties, days by the pool, and nights doing drugs. A lighter clicks. Alcohol is poured liberally. Glasses clink. But when Frida starts to wake up with dirt under her nails and Jess nowhere to be found, it gives her pause for thought. Then a champagne cork pops and all is forgotten.

What Kravitz has produced is a brutal and brilliant debut. From the initial trailers it was understandably compared to Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but Blink Twice is more in the realm of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, an unwavering thriller with real style and panache, as well as some harrowing social commentary – here focusing on misogyny.

Naomi Ackie and Adria Arjona are phenomenal, especially as screen partners, and by the end of the film audiences will feel almost para-socially bonded to the pair.

Tatum has been praised for his departure from type, and it’s entirely true: he is by turns charming and completely threatening, even terrifying at points, which is helped by his back catalogue as a funny guy and his lumbering physique.

As you’d expect from Kravitz, the music is impeccable, with a Beyoncé needle drop to die for mid-way through act three. After all, if Dance Yrself Clean by LCD Soundsystem was relegated to the trailer, the soundtrack was almost guaranteed to be good.

And the devil’s in the details. In recent interviews, Kravitz has said that she’s developed this idea over many years. It’s clear, from the motif of the lighter always going missing – something anyone who’s partied too often, and for too long, will know all too well – to the costuming of flowing white dresses, which reveals itself to be a chillingly clever and entirely purposeful decision.

It is savage at points, to the extent where audiences may be taken aback, wondering why Kravitz went there, or qustioning whether the action unfolding is too inplausible. Then, you are deftly reminded of the pre-Me Too era of Hollywood, and the behaviour of American fraternities for as long as time.

The message it sends isn’t particularly new, but it’s told in such an unbelievably entertaining way, it almost feels like it is. This is not a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it debut – Kravitz has introduced herself to the directing world now, and hopefully she’ll be back again very soon.

In cinemas from Friday

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