My wife reads so many mystery novels she has gotten really good at picking up on plot points and figuring out the endings long before she gets there. That’s why when we walked out of “Blink Twice,” I was so proud of being able to tell her about the clues sprinkled throughout the movie which she had missed.
Unfortunately, I can’t share any of them with you without spoiling where the story goes. But I’ll give you the bare bones of the beginning of the plot.
Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat) are best friends working as cocktail waitresses at a charity event thrown by billionaire Slater (Channing Tatum. All we know about him is that he had to publicly apologize (unconvincingly) for something scandalous he did a year ago.
At some point, the women change out of their server outfits and into formal dresses so they can mingle with the guests. Frida catches Slater’s eye and they have a few moments together. Late in the evening, he tells her he’s going to take a bunch of people on his jet to his private island for a little vacation, and invites both women along. They don’t have time to go home and pack for the trip, but they’re thrilled at the opportunity to hang out with some rich people at a tropical paradise resort.
The entourage includes former “Survivor” contestant Sarah (Adria Arjona), Vic (Christian Slater), Tom (Haley Joel Osment), gourmet chef Cody (Simon Rex), and a few other men and women — plus Geena Davis as Slater’s sister, Stacy, who desperately tries to keep everything organized. The women each have their own spacious rooms, with dresses and bikinis to wear while consuming copious amounts of alcohol, food, and weed around large swimming pools.
It seems like heaven. Until it doesn’t.
“Blink Twice” gets lost a bit in the middle, with too many redundant scenes of the idyllic party atmosphere. It’s as if rookie director Zöe Kravitz and her co-writer E.F. Feigenbaum knew they were building to a big finish but couldn’t figure out a compelling way to get there without some padding. I was at first annoyed that Kravitz shot so much of the movie in extreme close-ups with only a few establishing wide shots, but then recognized how doing so helps set up the intimacy necessary for what’s to come.
As Frida, Ackie (who played Whitney Houston in the biopic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”) is very good, giving the kind of performance that will generate a lot of other movie offers. Shawkat is as reliable as ever (she was in “Arrested Development” as a teen and has gotten quite a few supporting roles since, including the Jeff Bridges/John Lithgow FX series “The Old Man,” which returns for a second season soon). Opposite them, Tatum doesn’t have to do much heavy lifting to play Slater as a gregarious yet weaselly tech bro.
The rest of the cast is fine, with a special nod to Arjona, who made quite an impression a couple of months ago opposite Glen Powell in “Hit Man” (which I reviewed here), as well as María Elena Olivares, whose character is only credited as Badass Maid. Oh, and if you blink twice, you might miss Kyle MacLachlan as Slater’s therapist.
If this review seems a little vague, it’s because I’ve gone out of my way to not reveal too much. I’ll only add that when you walk in the theater and see a trigger warning printed on the screen, you should know this isn’t a light-hearted romcom by a long shot.
I give “Blink Twice” an 8 out of 10. Now playing in theaters.