‘Blink Twice’ and the Ramifications of Submitting Control
Is Zoe Kravitz’s directorial feature debut a feminist satire or a cautionary tale? What if it’s both? An examination
I stopped doing drugs a long time ago because I hated not having control over my body and mind. Blackouts are scary. Memory loss from any drug, including alcohol, put me in a weird place of uncertainty, helplessness, and insecurity. I had wild night-outs where I didn’t remember half of what happened. Once I even watched back a video of it, recorded by a friend, which showed me doing something awkward and stupid that I couldn’t recall at all — even after seeing it with my own eyes. It only happened a few times over many years, but the last one kind of freaked me out, so I made a pledge to myself: never give up control over yourself.
When I began watching Zoe Kravitz’s directorial feature debut, Blink Twice, a few days ago, I had a specific issue with it right at the beginning. You guessed it, it’s about control — and to talk about it in detail, I will spoil some essential plot points of the film, so consider this your spoiler warning.
Every review I’ve read so far of the movie seems to brush off an early key plot point that feels blatantly stupid and impetuous to me. Here it goes: Our two female protagonists, Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat), accept an invitation to a sketchy tech billionaire’s (Channing Tatum) private island, whom they literally just met, without hesitation.
Yeah, sure, they’re a little drunk but still aware that there are numerous allegations about this guy doing heinous, abusive things to people, and he can't seem to stop fake-apologizing on every social media platform. They go with him anyway, to a piece of land in the middle of the freakin’ ocean (where, by the way, phones aren’t allowed) and see what happens. It might be a great time. Or they might get raped. Whatever — shaka shaka. (The movie opens with a trigger warning that tells us upfront we’ll be seeing some sexual assault at one point, so there’s little doubt of what will take place in hell’s paradise).
After the omnipotent #MeToo movement, rampant cancel culture, and several films and TV shows elaborately portraying various sexual exploitations of women by rich men, this plot detail seems… bad? Unrealistic, preposterous, ignorant? I mean, we could argue till dawn about the circumstances and where and how this occurs, but I think it wouldn’t change the outcome. At best, this is a negligible hiccup in the script. You go along with it to see how the whole fiasco unfolds. At worst, it's a vital and consequential choice that hugely impacts the rest of the film by making the female protagonists slightly unlikable and near-impossible to root for.
It’s 2024, not 20 years ago. Today, women are cognizant, smart, and particularly cautious around men with power (and in general). Because if they aren’t, if they’re so desperate and hungry for success, wealth, and the attention of a billionaire that they’re willing to submit control and put their lives at risk, they inevitably have to face the ramifications of their actions. Frida and Jess give up control freely and voluntarily when they say yes to Tatum’s charming yet empty forest-green eyes. They get on a private plane with affluent men they don't know to fly to a remote place they've never been to or heard of before. Whatever happens after that — every single horrific thing they don’t consent to — stems from that one pivotal choice they made earlier.
For argument’s sake, let’s flip this premise. What if two poor, young, hot guys had followed a mysterious, sexy, and high-powered woman to a private place owned and ruled by her and her people because they can’t resist pussy, free drugs, and luxury. Would you feel sorry for them if they’d get tortured and perhaps killed for the entertainment of a few bored and psycho women? No, you'd think, "These dudes had it coming." But in the opposite scenario we see in Blink Twice, Frida, Jess and all the other women become victims. And they are victims — but not only victims of the preying, narcissistic pricks that secretly (and then openly) drug them to make them forget about the raping they suffer every night, but of their own carelessness and irresponsibility.
There’s a scene halfway through where Frida and her newly-found ally Sarah (Adria Arjona) figure out what’s happening — why they seem to be forgetting all the violent desecrations that take place when the sun goes down. Sarah says, “What’s crazy is that we got onto a plane with a bunch of dudes we don’t know. What the fuck were we thinking?” It’s the first time Kravitz (who co-wrote the script) forces her characters to reckon with their own dubious choices.
Though it's a moment of realization that's short-lived and quickly dismissed — just like that acceptance of the invitation at the start — it's a crucial acknowledgment of recklessness from Kravitz. She's aware of how this looks from the viewer's chair and momentarily highlights that her feature may serve as a cautionary tale of how to avoid a dangerous situation rather than tell you what to do when you find yourself in it. This isn’t the main focus of the movie at all, but the fact that Kravitz addresses it in her satirical, creepy-funny way reassures us of her competence and confidence as a conscientious storyteller.
There are snippets of this awareness throughout the film, carefully tucked into its stylish visual grandeur, but if you blink too fast (or twice, sorry) you might miss them. For better or worse, Kravitz opts to go in a more sensational and thrill-oriented direction, following the well-trodden path that films like Promising Young Woman, The Menu, and Triangle of Sadness carved out in recent years. Blink Twice works as efficiently as any of those (and it’s a lot of vicious fun) — turning female empowerment and alliance into a razor-sharp feminist satire — but because of that, it misses out on the opportunity to provide a fresh and more profound message.
And even though the bonkers bloodbath of its finale is all about taking revenge on perverted scumbags, most of the women can’t get to escape the consequence of their wrong decisions. I’m unsure of how much of this was a conscious choice on Kravitz’s part, and how much was in service of ramping up the gore, but it oddly feels fair and justifiable that there are casualties on both sides. There are no innocents here or victorious heroes. In the end, whoever fights the hardest (and smartest) to take back control and never let it go again wins. Whether you'll still like them or not by then, that’s a different question.
Last week, I reviewed Netflix’s new animated series, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, which failed to capture why many of us fell in love with games. Also, since Halloween is right around the corner, I’ll be reviewing Peacock’s upcoming teen horror show, Hysteria, on Den of Geek soon. Horror Aughts will also continue, I promise.
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