“Of the people that I could name who I think have a real shot at coming out of the gate making something really distinctive and strong, [Zoë Kravitz] is at the top of that list.” High praise from Steven Soderbergh, who directed her in 2022’s neat pandemic thriller Kimi. That movie came and went on HBO Max, but Soderbergh spreads his seed far and wide, and there haven’t been many years in my lifetime when he hasn’t released at least a film or two. He’s been just as busy post-pandemic, helming Magic Mike’s Last Dance in February 2023 and making a considerable impression at Sundance 2024 with Presence, his first-person ghost movie; star Lucy Liu was so freaked out by the finished film, she said she didn’t even feel like a member of the cast—in the best way. Soderbergh, perhaps America’s most even-keeled working director, will release two movies in the span of three months early next year: Presence and Black Bag, a spy thriller written by David Koepp and starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, among many others. No sweat. The world needs more filmmakers like him.
Maybe Kravitz will make a film a year. If she continues to act, I doubt it, but she isn’t in Blink Twice, and she could always pull a Woody Allen or a Robert Townshend. This film was originally called Pussy Island, but Kravitz agreed to change it after that title tested poorly: “Interestingly enough, after researching it, women were offended by the word, and women seeing the title were saying, 'I don't want to see that movie,' which is part of the reason I wanted to try and use the word, which is trying to reclaim the word, and not make it something that we're so uncomfortable using. But we're not there yet. And I think that's something I have the responsibility as a filmmaker to listen to.”
It’s a great title, but not for this movie—Pussy Island gives it away, and whoever edited the trailer for this one did a great job. But as of Friday night, Blink Twice has “only” made a few million dollars, underperforming even for its relatively modest $20 million budget. I was shocked at how sparse the crowd was at the Charles, compared to Longlegs or even MaXXXine last month. Blink Twice is much better than either of those movies, and refreshingly deals with the present, unlike most contemporary American cinema. Naomi Ackie and Alia Shawkat play waiter roommates struggling to make rent; they fall in with Slater King (Channing Tatum), a mega-tycoon introduced in a TikTok reel at the very beginning fake-apologizing for whatever nasty shit he got up to. Ackie is mindlessly scrolling, totally lobotomized, and we’re catapulted from her crummy apartment to the waitstaff at a gala event and then Shawkat and her are sashaying “east-to-west” across the party in gorgeous gowns; Ackie trips, cuts her hand, and gets the attention and immediate affection of Tatum.
Kyle MacLachlan gets the glass out of her hand, and quickly Ackie and Shawkat agree to join Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, Simon Rex, and others on an isolated island owned by Tatum; it’s strictly no phones, no internet, a place to “purify” oneself. Everyone parties day and night, “laughing and smiling like fucking 1960s flight attendants,” and gradually Ackie regains her memory, and the slipstream of days and blurry memories come into sharp focus as people prepare to kill and die. There are no children on the island, only about a dozen guests, and just a few domestic workers, but it’s still a riff on Jeffrey Epstein and his cursed island. The film goes beyond anodyne #MeToo-era platitudes about “believing women,” and it’s more ambiguous than Kravitz’s public comments; more than misogyny, Blink Twice is an indictment of pop psychology and the empty apologies of the post-Trump era. Shot in gorgeous anamorphic widescreen by Adam Newport-Berra, and impeccably designed by Roberto Bonelli, Blink Twice is gripping from the go and never condescends, even if the writing dips into contemporary cliché occasionally. It should make a ton of money, if only the advertising were better. I don’t have stock in MGM, but more movies like this and fewer movies like Deadpool vs. Wolverine and Alien: Romulus makes for a much healthier cinema.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter and Instagram: @nickyotissmith