In her daring directorial debut, “Blink Twice,” writer/director Zoë Kravitz doesn’t flinch once – not even when her film might be served by looking away. She maintains a steely gaze in this caustic social horror fable, laced with black comedy, which nods to Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” though Kravitz chooses to aim her artistic weapon at sexual politics, not necessarily race. Co-written with E.
T. Feigenbaum, “Blink Twice” is a big, bold swing from the actress-turned-filmmaker, even if her message becomes muddled along the way. It’s clear Kravitz wants to make a statement with this film.
What’s less clear is what exactly that statement might be. “Blink Twice” opens with a dead-eyed scroll in a dingy bathroom; our protagonist, Frida (Naomi Ackie), thumbs her phone screen on the toilet catatonically, observing the lives of others on Instagram, before she and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) rush to work, serving champagne and canapés at a swanky gala hosted by a disgraced tech mogul, Slater King (Channing Tatum). Yearning to feel a part of something bigger, the cater waiters slip into slinky gowns and join the party themselves, warmly welcomed into an inner circle of wealthy men as beautiful young women typically are.
Jet off to Slater’s private island with his pals? Frida’s been longing for a vacation. Kravitz observes this moneyed milieu well, and what she capably achieves in “Blink Twice” is an absurdist comedy of gendered manners once the g.