Blink Twice Parent Guide

Roommates and besties Frida (Naomie Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat) are not exactly living the high life. They work as cocktail waitresses for corporate events, but the job doesn’t pay well, and the black mold in their apartment isn’t going anywhere.

In a seeming stroke of fortune, their next gig is an event for billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), who has been keeping a low profile after some personal scandals. Frida and Jess bring nicer dresses and pretend to be guests rather than servers, prompting, after a flirtatious evening, an invitation from Slater to join him and his friends on his private island.

The island is gorgeous and unsettlingly remote. Even worse, it’s a cell-phone-free zone, per Slater’s request. Cheeringly, the party is effectively non-stop, with champagne flowing at all hours and enough weed to keep Snoop Dogg busy for at least a few months. But something isn’t right – Jess has a bad feeling about the place, and Frida had some strange experiences. And then one morning, Jess vanishes, and none of the other guests remember her. Except Frida, who now has much more than a bad feeling. But what can she do, a million miles from anywhere and seemingly completely alone?

Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut is certainly an exciting one. The movie grabs you and drags you along on an increasingly unsettling, upsetting, and outright terrible ride, and it does it remarkably well. The intrigue is well managed, without giving too much away too soon, but that does leave the first act feeling a little slow, and more than a little repetitive. A few days of poolside narcotics conventions kind of blend together.

I don’t want to get too much into this, because I’d prefer not to spoil the film, but you should be aware that the film has a great deal to do with sexual violence. Someone in the moviemaking pipeline even inserted a disclaimer between the film’s production credits and the opening, which I wish more studios would do (even if it makes me a little redundant). There’s also some graphic violence and a whole lot of cursing, cementing this flick’s well-earned Restricted rating.

Blink Twice is, in turn, exciting and disquieting, and that tension plus a strong cast makes a compelling summer thriller, well worth the price of admission for adults who aren’t deterred by the dark, graphic subject matter. If this is what Zoe Kravitz can do on her first try, then I’m looking forward to seeing what she comes out with next.