Zoe Kravitz has always been an incredibly known quantity when it comes to celebrity and in regards to her acting work, she has more than earned a reputation as a solid star with a balance of talent and pure charisma. So when it came about that Kravitz would be making their directorial debut with a script of their own pen aswell, I was reasonably excited, with a natural apprehension. However for Kravitz I would dare say that despite a series of flaws largely down to her writing debut, my overwhelming final feeling leaving Blink Twice was about how this is a startingly strong directorial debut for the actor.
Following Get Out’s genius revisionism of The Stepford Wives formula, it came to pass as with any original idea (or in this case revision of an original idea) that studios Hollywood over milks it dry and now here we have the very belated #metoo version of Stepford. Ignore that Stepford itself is more about assault culture than any of the projects it inspired despite coming out decades prior. My issue with even the very best of these types of films of course is that we all know how it’s all going to end, so the first forty minutes of these films are often quite tired for me. Now the editing of Kathryn J. Schubert and the directing of Kravitz is however incredibly slick and the overall vibe is stellar. But more so the whole film is built around a façade of quality – which sounds more brutal than it’s supposed to, but I also can’t deny it’s not partially true. It’s unfortunately a film where the minute you start to think about plotting, it begins to fall apart. It’s a film where the minute you think about some of the ways the film attempts to speak to the climate of sexual violence, it also begins to fall apart. And then as a final touch it falls apart right in front of your eyes with a badass girlboss ending that did not work for me at all, no matter how solid the basis of what the film is wanting us to feel is.
Overall Kravitz
pulls off a lot more than she fails to pull off, but it is a movie overall that
lessens as more time passes, which is not what one wants. However I must once
again proclaim how solid I found this debut to be in regards to her overall
handle on directing, it’s a very accomplished and slick film that elevates the original
material to such a point that for most of the time, one feels the film is of a
better quality than it actually is. Not many times during the actual film –
until the very ending – did I find myself thinking of the films issues in the
moment. Another factor in the films favour is the stunning cast assembled, who
all do great work. Led by Naomi Acke and Alia Shawkat, who bring us slowly but surely
into the depths of the terror by starting nicely as fun lovers. We are then
introduced to a vast ensemble with many highlights; Christian Slater, Simon Rex
and Haley Joel Osment are all they’re entertaining brilliant selves, with a
darkness underneath it. Again, the whole thing is built up to a reveal of the
darkness, but we’re not stupid and we know what film we’re watching, so it’s
just a slightly trudging waiting game. Channing Tatum leads these duplicitous yet
charming scumbags and is brilliant, charismatic and deeply unsettling. But
again the whole, thing falls apart whenever one even contemplates some of the
chief elements of the plot. The films major acting standout for me was Adria
Arjona, who impressed me with her turn in Hitman but here brought a real
and genuine complexity of performance that thoroughly worked for me and was by
far the strongest and most dimensional by far – if only the whole film had the
dimensionality she brought to her performance we would be in a lot stronger
position. Although a welcome performance from Geena Davis is never a bad thing,
her role is hampered by it being the most uneven of the commentary. But a lots uneven,
but the highs are higher than the lows. I think. I think.
A very solid 6/10 that after leaving the cinema I was caught between deciding whether it was a very well directed 6/10 or a very poorly written 7/10. I decided for the lower, the many bizarre holes of the scripts just cannot be bettered upon, they are integral and at the core of the beast. However, the film remains incredibly well directed and features some great performances. But overall, it just cannot escape the weight of how poorly it handles some of its commentary and just the base of its many errors in its plotting.
P.S. For all of this films foibles, it does cut away abruptly and very affectingly to one of the more shocking images of the year. It’s stun and its suddenness startle and unsettle. Shame the impact of this and the films couple of later effecting reveals could not be sustained for more of a majority of its running time.
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Thomas Carruthers
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