On the island, Kravitz achieves an almost perfect balance between how enviable the holiday is, and how unsettling it is, between how sophisticated the men seem at some points, and how dangerously stupid they seem at others. You can see why Frida might find the bros’ swanky lifestyle ridiculous, but you can also see why she would be happy to partake of that lifestyle herself, despite some hilariously spooky warning signs: Kravitz makes sinister use of the smiling servants who can be spotted in the background, killing the venomous snakes that crawl through King’s Eden. The viewer, too, can enjoy all the sumptuously shot, richly coloured opulence while knowing that something bad is going to happen soon.
It doesn’t happen soon enough, though. There are some bursts of psychedelic weirdness, but the lazing-by-the-pool montages become rambling and repetitive, and the foreshadowing becomes so blatant that many viewers will guess the big twist an hour before it’s revealed. When the memory-loss plot eventually gets going, Kravitz seems determined to make up for lost time. The tone swings wildly between farcical silliness and upsetting grimness, and there are so many points being made about trauma, amnesia, white privilege, cancel culture, the super-rich and sexual exploitation that the concepts overwhelm the plot. Muddled by all its time jumps and memory gaps, Blink Twice is less successful as a compelling thriller than as a collection of smart ideas and contentious themes, of cool images and striking sequences, of dialogue that will be quoted and clips that will become memes.
As cluttered as it is, though, Blink Twice is stylish and savage enough to gain a cult following. And it is undoubtedly the work of a skilled writer-director, rather than an actor who is having a go at directing. Kravitz has elicited terrific performances from all of the cast (Ackie, Shawkat and Arjona, especially), she has constructed some satisfyingly gruesome retribution for the villains, and the finale wraps things up brilliantly. If Kravitz decides to make a sequel called Blink Thrice, it might be even better.
★★★☆☆
Blink Twice is released on 23 August
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