Blink Twice

“Blink Twice” left us on the edge of our seats and wondering what would happen next. Let’s talk about it! Spoilers ahead!

The two main characters Jess (Alia Shawkat) and Frida (Naomi Ackie) are friends that work as event waitresses. The movie opens with Frida scrolling through her phone and coming across an apology video from Slater King (Channing Tatum). Slater King is a tech billionaire and is apologizing about a wrong that is never explained to us. Frida falls into a doom scroll and is interrupted by Jess, Frida’s interest with Slater is interesting, we wondered why she became interested in him so quickly. It just so happens that our girls Frida and Jess are waitresses working a Slater King event, they are able to slip away, put on fancy dresses and blend into the party, where they run into Slater and start making the rounds of being introduced to everyone. At the end of the night Slater invites the pair to his private island with him, three friends and three other women. This is where we spend most of our time during the movie. The island consists of the main house which is bright red, anyone with a basic understanding of color symbolism can tell you that a red house isn’t always inviting. Red can symbolize danger and anger which we see come into play throughout the movie. The compound is surrounded by jungle and King talks about a snake infestation that he has been trying to deal with. We see one of the maids holding one she just killed, it left us wondering why the snakes had become such an issue. Jess and Frida are staying in a guest house that is yellow. Yellow shows happiness and naivety, the women spend their days drinking and smoking weed. And at the end of each night everyone gathers around to eat dinner, and then the girls are given what appears to be LSD drops. Then it cuts to our characters who are dancing and making out and just generally tripping. Then it cuts to the women in all white running away from the jungle and darkness. The scene repeats over and over, drink, smoke, eat, LSD, trip, run. We spend the movie wondering what they could be running from, the men are never seen running away with them. Then one night things are disrupted, Jess is bitten by one of the snakes that inhabit the island. She starts to freak out and begs Frida to go home, something troubles her but Frida refuses and says this is the first time in her life she is actually seen. Not invisible. Jess seems to shake off her worries and tries to enjoy the rest of the night. The next day Jess is gone. Frida is the only one who even remembers her friend being there. Frida tries to confide in Sarah (Adria Arjona), one of the other women brought to the private island. They go over how they are missing time and wonder how dirt gets under their fingernails and bruises on their bodies. Frida is able to convince Sarah that something is wrong and she remembers the snake venom she drank at the request of one of the house maids who calls her “Red Rabbit.” Now that Sarah and Frida have drank the snake venom and getting their memories back they work to help the two other girls invited to the island, Camilla (Liz Caribel) and Heather (Trew Mullen). It isn’t until dinner where everyone starts to remember. Each girl puts up the fight for their lives, avenging what has happened to them on the island. When Camilla and Heather are killed in the struggle, Frida and Sarah begin to rely on each other for survival. And they are able to make it out alive, lighting the island home on fire while they are at it. “Blink Twice” is a captivating and interesting look into how women exist in society. Showing that when given the proper information, society is set up for them to fail, for them to exist to look pretty, they go from ditzy, intoxicated women who only care about men and what they are interested into having the blinds ripped open and being aware of the actual danger they are in. There is a struggle to keep the facade going, like it usually does in society, when women become aware of all of the systems working against them it is hard to go back to the ignorant bliss no matter how desperately you want to unlearn, eventually things fall apart. Zoë Kravitz even touches on how women are so frequently pitted against each other to compete for male attention, shown through Sarah and Frida going back and forth to monopolize Slater’s time, when in reality things happen when we can work together. Kravitz also shows us the harsh reality that in a world without consequence (and even in one with them) men will do whatever they want to women, with no guilt and no remorse. They will act on their sense of entitlement to our bodies, our time and general well being. The women in this film are objectified in more ways than one, because these experiments are never done on men, men are afforded the luxury of remembering if they so choose, there is a mental gymnastics that occurs in which these women would have to not be human in the eyes of these men in order for them to be able to do these acts to them on a regular basis. Zoë Kravitz produces a film that is filled with little details and connections. Somehow all the clues and actions tie back together and add to the visual experience. This not so underlying message of the film is one that gets deeper as you rewatch and connect everything together. Action packed and infinitely important, we thoroughly enjoyed “Blink Twice.”