‘Blink Twice’ (2024) Review – A Superb Script Make For A Frightening Reality

The following review of Blink Twice will contain significant spoilers.

Blink Twice is another example of the commercialization of trauma that has been simmering in Hollywood for a while now, but this past summer, it has reached a boiling point. For decades, we’ve seen the backstories of superheroes and supervillains, exploring the trauma that shaped them into who they are today.For instance, in The Dark Knight, we know Batman’s parents were murdered in front of him.

Meanwhile, the Joker’s backstory hints at abuse by his parents—although, admittedly, his story keeps changing. Yet, they never truly forget. That’s the funny thing: how powerful the mind can be that can help you forget all that pain. Trauma, a relatively new phenomenon not established in the books until the late 1970s, can manifest itself in all kinds of ways, and the brain can help you dissociate from such atrocities.

The new Blake Lively film It Ends With Us presents a thoughtful presentation of this self-protection of domestic abuse. Get Out is a metaphor for white supremacy infliction generation trauma on a group of people. That’s what Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, Blink Twice, is about. The film is a horrific immersive metaphor for how the posteromedial cortex helps the brain slip into what feels like a distant fog to cloud pain from reality from sexual abuse.

The story follows tech billionaire playboy Slater King (Channing Tatum) as he meets a struggling cocktail waitress, Frida (Naomi Ackie). Frida and her best friend (Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat) charm their way into a gala, hoping to rub shoulders with the uber-rich. Slater makes her an offer she can’t refuse—or rather, one she really could have—inviting her on vacation to his beach-laden private island with his friends.

Frida has always dreamed of this: a taste of the good life. She meets Slater’s friends (featuring some clever casting with Adria Arjona, Simon Rex, Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, and Geena Davis). However, what starts auspiciously quickly turns downright ominous. As sun-soaked days blend into nights of debauchery, Frida finds herself unable to distinguish reality from nightmarish illusions and must keep her wits about her to survive.

Originally titled Pussy Island, Kravitz wrote the script with her High Fidelity colleague E.T. Feigenbaum. The film’s first half is an engaging and absorbing presentation that gradually removes the viewer from Frida’s rose-colored lens as an anxious reality begins to set in. Much like Jordan Peele’s aforementioned film, Kravitz’s movie starts as a dark comedy about therapy but soon transforms into something far more sinister.

That’s when Blink Twice shows its teeth. Much of this is established and followed through because of two critical performances from Ackie and Arjona, who are spectacular here, displaying symptoms of trauma victims becoming triggered. Behind the smiles are two women who act fatigued. Watch, and you’ll have slight mood swings and unexplained restlessness. And the constant shift between numbness and hypervigilance.

Feigenbaum and Kravitz’s excellent script does a masterful job of shocking viewers into reality with well-placed flashbacks of victims reintegrating with their trauma. At times, it can be an absolute marvel, as the story is so tightly wound that it begins to spiral out of control. Some may say that Kravitz needs more seasoning as a filmmaker to reel in her ambitious idea, but I would argue that this approach puts you in the minds of the victims.

I will say that, at times, Blink Twice can be thoroughly unpleasant, and I cannot imagine anyone who is a sexual assault victim not being triggered by the film. (The studio does an admirable job of displaying warnings before the film starts and for a prolonged period.) Additionally, Kravitz strongly focuses on auditory sensory elements in the movie (though there is a point to that choice called sensory recall), prioritizing theme over storytelling and character development.

Yet, after walking out of the theatre, you’ll be on the fence, but the themes carry the film’s message comparable to Get Out. Kravitz’s attention to detail separates her film from others of the same ilk. (For example, women constantly remind themselves to smile, a behavior taught to diffuse unwanted advances.) Blink Twice will linger in your mind long after it’s over.

Blink Twice is currently playing exclusively in theaters courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.