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Mucking with Movies: ‘Blink Twice,’ skip once

Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.
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“Blink Twice” is Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut, and unfortunately, her inexperience bleeds onto the screen.

Never quite deciding where she wanted to take the film nor how to get there, the one hundred and two-minute runtime moseys along without much build from scene to scene. It was like watching somebody paint a fence: There’s nothing noteworthy about it; it just happens, and one by one, the posts are painted until it’s over. It counts as art by clearing the bare minimum bar of creating something that was not there before. There are good house painters though, ones who don’t leave smudges and know to put two coats on — that’s what Kravitz did with “Blink Twice.” She cleared the bar in an adequate way that the quality floats above bad into mediocre territory. 

Biting off way more than she can chew, the film starts with some slight commentary on social media creating faux idol worship, takes a wild veer into anti-capitalism territory, and then ultimately finds itself tearing down the patriarchy one stab at a time. Tonely, “Blink Twice” is also lost. While I am a sucker for multi-genre flicks, this is only when they are capable of paying homage to many genres, blending them like a well-balanced cocktail. But Kravitz jumps around, undecided on how she wants to attack her ongoing thesis. There are bouts with thriller, horror, and revenge action; at one point, it produced the feeling and timing of a buddy comedy. Those jabs at levity are poorly executed and come at oddly chosen moments. Moments that feel wildly inappropriate; moments that take away from the seriousness that the movie is trying to create. 



With that, it is tough to tell whether Kravitz is doing her best M. Night Shyamalan impression or her best Quentin Tarantino impression. It is a copy of somebody — maybe copies of a copy from several influences, as the inconsistency comes from a feeling of inauthenticity. Kravitz hasn’t found her voice yet, and the easiest thing to do when you don’t know what to say is to use somebody else’s. 

The editing doesn’t help her out either, opting for an awkward quick-cutting style that shreds most of the best footage. It is hard to concentrate, hard to engage in the film, and become immersed when every second and a half there’s a cut. I love that quick-cut style when it delivers a rhythm that is maintained throughout the film, but here, it fails to work into the overall structure of the film. It just reminds you that you are watching a film; that somebody somewhere was waving the magic wand to make this all happen. So, when you get to the big climax and the big twist is gnarled into the film’s flesh, you don’t care. There’s no intrigue about what happened and why it happened; it’s just another thing that happened. Which is a shame because she does have some important, interesting ideas going on here. As well as some impressive directorial flourishes. 




Those moments of levity, while misplaced, are genuinely funny. I laugh out loud more than a handful of times and always at what seem to be laugh lines. It keeps the film entertaining and stops the boredom even when the narrative gets confusing beyond comprehension. To make a film this dense while still entertaining is not easy, but Kravitz pulls it off. 

Once again Channing Tatum delivers as eccentric predatorial billionaire Slater King. Able to convey this disingenuine tenderness simply through the look in his eyes, from the jump, you know that he is bad but you do not know how bad. You think that perhaps he can even be redeemed, and that is the arc that we are in for. The worst parts of “Blink Twice” are when he is away from the screen. Inserting him in more scenes could have heightened the tension that the film desperately needs as well as giving your best performer more time to enchant the audience. 

“Blink Twice” is a wildly uneven film that doesn’t quite deserve the hard-hitting themes it is chasing. There’s a risk-reward factor when you’re playing with major issues that will be deeply triggering to your audience. If you don’t earn the right to address, your film’s quality is going to suffer by proxy. Although I am curious and excited if Zoe Kravitz ever decides to sit in the director’s chair again, perhaps building her abilities through a lighter affair will be beneficial. 

Critic Score: 4.8/10 

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