‘We’d like to speak you about your friendship with Jeffery Epstein’. It’s a request that would have made Prince Andrew Blink Twice and the nod towards Epstein’s Island in Zoe Kravitz directorial debut is obvious. But unlike Epstein the multi billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) at the centre of this makes a public apology about something untoward that happened on his own island and takes a step back from his company to reflect on whatever it is that has occurred there.
Yet despite this Frida (Naomi Ackie), an aspring nail designer and living in a rundown flat with her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat), are both eking out a living as waitresses,and she is still obsessed with the tycoon. So her dreams come true when she finds herself waitressing at a fund raising event he is holding. With an audacious bit of subterfuge she and Jess join the exclusive party as guests where she catches Slater’s eye who invites them both to his island. If movies rather than common sense have taught us anything it’s, ‘don’t go to a secluded island owned by billionaires’ as Glass Onion and best of all the classic black & white film ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ have shown. But they go anyway. Once there they find themselves in the company of Slater’s friends that include keen chef Cody (Simon Rex), a pair of beautiful stoners (Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen), and a polaroid camera fanatic (Christian Slater) photographing everything ( a lazy plot device that comes into its own as the film proceeds) along with a number of others including The Sixth Sense’s Haley Joel Osment. Competing with Frida for Slater’s attention is the champion of TV show ‘Hot Survivor Babes’ – surely coming to Channel 5 soon- whose frenemies status will soon be put aside out of necessity.
But the free flowing booze and drug addled paradise island is soon to become the stuff of nightmares when Jess becomes concerned that something is just not right. A potty jabbering housemaid, Frida’s random bruises and unexplained dirt under fingernails none of which she can recall and she’s not the only one wondering about this. So when Jess just disappears with no one remembering her ever being on the island the terror slowly unfolds. Tatum and Ackie are excellent playing characters we’ve not really see as before, Tatum especially.
Co-written by Kravtiz there’s a lot going on her in script with a subtext that takes in patriarchy, misogyny, the meaninglessness of corporate apologies and so much more. Running through this is the leit motif where characters ask if anyone has a lighter and is a hint that there’s much darkness at the heart of the film to cast light on. There’s so much going on here amongst the imagery and uneasy laughs that there is perhaps too much. But that ignores what a really singular directorial debut this is and no one really expected that from a former model but this is an exciting opener hopefully to a new career behind the camera.
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instagram feature : Our invite to ‘Blink Twice’
Here’s the Blink Twice trailer….
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