Blink Twice is a glitzy thrill ride that gets lost in the darkness of its own ideas

Zoë Kravitz’s passionateness for making movies is written each implicit Blink Twice, Amazon MGM’s caller intelligence thriller starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum. You tin spot it successful the feature’s meticulously crafted shots and perceive it successful each cautiously placed needle drop. Blink Twice is a promising directorial debut from Kravitz — particularly erstwhile the movie is focused connected enchanting you with its glamorous depiction of celebrity. But an awesome oculus for the aesthetic tin lone bash truthful overmuch to transportation a communicative that’s arsenic thorny and hard arsenic Blink Twice’s. And portion galore of the movie’s halfway ideas astir enactment and powerfulness are potent, Blink Twice struggles to research them successful a mode that feels substantive oregon original.

Aside from the information that she has an unusually bully representation for faces, determination doesn’t look to beryllium that overmuch retired of the mean astir cater waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) arsenic Blink Twice opens the nighttime earlier she and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkawt) are meant to beryllium moving astatine a large gala. Under immoderate different circumstance, spending an evening waiting manus and ft connected boozed-up, uber-wealthy elites mightiness dependable similar a nightmare to Frida, who dreams of being capable to discontinue and prosecute her passionateness for nail art. But with the large enactment being a solemnisation for embattled billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), Frida — 1 of galore radical smitten with the celebrated tech bro — can’t assistance but get excited astatine the anticipation of seeing him. And erstwhile their paths bash yet cross, it isn’t agelong earlier helium invites some women to his backstage land for a abrogation getaway.

Though there’s a frenzied, rushed prime to Blink Twice’s opening act, Kravitz and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra cleverly usage that vigor to found the movie arsenic 1 that’s trying to transmission the disorienting acquisition of being pulled into a superstar’s orbit. Everything astir the champagne-soaked satellite of excess that King and his elite friends / employees (Simon Rex, Geena Davis, Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater, Levon Hawke) beryllium successful is unusual to Frida and Jess. But the undeniable quality of it each — the backstage jet, the island, the elaborate multicourse dinners chased with premium drugs — is capable to person Don’t Blink’s heroines that King has welcomed them to a wonderland.

Kravitz, who cowrote Don’t Blink’s publication with High Fidelity’s E.T. Feigenbaum, wants you to consciousness the fantasy, too, arsenic Frida’s days connected the land commencement blending unneurotic into a dreamlike blur of lazy afternoons by the excavation and drunken nights moving nether the stars. Because Don’t Blink takes truthful galore cues from caller horrors similar The Menu and Ready oregon Not, though, it’s hard not to spot the film’s acheronian twists coming from a distance.

Part of the occupation is that fewer of Don’t Blink’s characters person each that overmuch texture to them speech from Tatum’s King and Sarah (Adria Arjona), a erstwhile contestant connected a Survivor-like amusement who besides shows up connected the land looking to party. Aside from 1 important monologue that falls alternatively flat, Tatum does a serviceable occupation of embodying King arsenic an eccentric, yet charming recluse laying debased to rehabilitate his representation aft a precise nationalist scandal. And Arjona’s Sarah — a nonrecreational personage celebrated for her quality to past successful stressful situations — is simply a astonishment delight whose show brings immoderate much-needed levity to the movie arsenic things commencement to crook sinister.

But determination is truthful small substance to Frida’s property extracurricular of her infatuation with King that the quality often feels two-dimensional prevention for a fistful of moments erstwhile the movie abruptly shifts gears conscionable agelong capable for her to constituent retired (more for the audience’s benefit) however weird being connected the land feels. Those fleeting scenes springiness Ackie a accidental to amusement disconnected her range, and you tin astir consciousness however overmuch much unnerving Don’t Blink might beryllium if the movie showed america much of its heroine’s complexity earlier she loses it to the island’s unusual magic. But for communicative reasons, Kravitz saves Frida’s interiority for Don’t Blink’s dizzying last enactment erstwhile the afloat representation of its mysterious puzzle comes into focus.

To the film’s credit, it’s an workout successful fearfulness storytelling that’s really trying to articulate respective precise circumstantial things astir sex and intersexual unit alternatively than conscionable coasting connected unsettling vibes. As Don’t Blink peels backmost the layers of its cardinal mystery, it becomes exceedingly wide that Kravitz means for it to deed galore of the aforesaid nerves arsenic Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and Jordan Peele’s Get Out. But whereas those films’ messages astir powerfulness and trauma were much cautiously woven into their narratives connected a method level, Blink Twice hamfistedly spits its ideas retired with a bravado that isn’t wholly earned. 

With a spot much polish and clip spent making its players consciousness similar existent people, Blink Twice’s attempts to daze you with a heavy telegraphed pivot into metaphorical fearfulness mightiness enactment overmuch much effectively. Instead, the movie lands determination person to Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, which is to accidental stylish but somewhat lacking successful its quality to unpack its cardinal themes.

Blink Twice works reasonably good connected a aboveground level arsenic a glitzy popcorn thriller that volition marque your tegument crawl. But Kravitz is besides intelligibly striving for much present — and the movie ne'er rather hits that deeper level of meaning that would crook it into thing genuinely special.

Blink Twice also stars Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen, Kyle MacLachlan, Cris Costa, and María Elena Olivares. The movie is successful theaters now.