“Blink Twice,” a new psychological thriller co-written and directed by Zoe Kravitz, is full of twists and turns.
Kravitz’s directorial debut stars Naomi Ackie as Frida, a cocktail waitress and aspiring nail artist in desperate need of a vacation. While working at a lavish party for King Tech, Frida meets tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum). Frida and her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) are invited on a trip to King’s private island.
The phone is soon returned, and Frida falls into a vicious cycle of drinking, smoking, drug use, and partying with Slater and his friends, losing track of her sense of daily life.
It wasn’t long before Frida began to notice disturbing anomalies, like inexplicable stains under her fingernails and the maids killing the island’s poisonous snakes.
The story unfolds at a rapid pace as Frida pieces together the sinister events that are truly occurring on the island.
Here we detail the film’s climax and satisfying ending.
Frieda and Sarah team up to take down Slater and the men who have abused and exploited these women.
Naomi Ackie as Frida and Adria Arjona as Sara in “Blink Twice.” Amazon MGM Studios
Slater is initially portrayed as a charming billionaire who believes therapy has transformed his life, but later in the film his sadistic behavior becomes apparent.
One night, Jess is bitten by a poisonous snake and decides she’s had enough of the island. Frida, however, has no intention of leaving, because for the first time in her life she is no longer invisible. The next day, Frida wakes up and goes through her usual routine: she sprays herself with perfume made from the red Desideria flowers found only on the island, puts on the same white clothes, and spends another relaxing day with the rest of the group.
When a maid gives Frida a green liquid, snake venom, she begins to regain fragments of her memory. Sara (Adria Arjona), another guest on the island, confides in Frida that she’s having a good time but has a strange feeling that something is wrong, especially considering that none of the women except Frida remember Jess, who disappears without explanation.
Frida and Sara discover that the perfume is wiping the women’s memories, and that snake venom is the key to regaining them. To help the other women regain their memories without arousing suspicion, Frida and Sara give them tequila laced with poison, which Slater’s absent-minded assistant, Stacey (Geena Davis), also drinks with them.
Akki as Frida and Arjona as Sara in “Blink Twice.” Carlos Somonte/Amazon MGM Studios
Frida regains her memories and learns that the snake bite caused Jess to be unable to forget and that the men killed her. Furthermore, every night, Frida and the other women were subjected to varying degrees of sexual violence by Slater and other men.
In another flashback, Slater’s trauma therapist, Rich (Kyle MacLachlan), who specializes in repressed memories, is astonished that Frida has no memory of the horrific events that happened – Slater tells him that the more traumatic the experience, the more faded Frida’s memory will be.
Back in the present day, Slater notices the women behaving strangely at dinner, and Frieda and Sara start a dance party to distract themselves.The action soon begins when Camila (Liz Caribe) and Heather (Trewe Mullen) regain their memories.
Camilla stabs Tom (Haley Joel Osment) to death, Heather hits Vic (Christian Slater) over the head with a chessboard, Slater’s security guard Stan (Chris Costa) shoots Heather and chases Frida into the woods, where Sarah hits him over the head with a huge rock, killing him. Slater then stomps on Camilla’s neck, killing her.
Meanwhile, Stacey becomes angry at Frieda for reminding her and tries to kill her, Frieda stabs Stacey to death in defense, and Sarah shoots and kills Cody (Simon Rex).
Among Slater’s collection of photos of past guests, Frida finds an old Polaroid of herself with a completely different hairstyle, revealing that she has already visited his island, but her memory of it had been wiped.
Akki plays Frida in “Blink Twice.” Amazon MGM Studios
Frieda and Sarah walk towards Slater’s compound, where Slater has barricaded himself with Vic and Lucas (Levon Hawke), armed with a knife and a gun. As Frieda enters the building, Sarah shoots Lucas from a distance, killing him instantly.
While fighting Slater, Frieda regains further memories, revealing that she has a scar on the side of her face (something Slater had previously asked about) after an incident in the woods with Slater on a previous visit to the island.
Slater ties Frida up and tells her that there is no such thing as forgiveness, only forgetting – which Frida is very good at, having completely forgotten about the island since her last visit – and that the world would be a better place if people were free from remembering things.
Slater also alludes to the fact that he and his sister were sexually abused by older men, perhaps a traumatic event that occurred before he turned 10, which explains why, as he tells Frida earlier in the film, he has very few memories of that time.
Slater is interrupted by Sarah entering the premises and chases after her, leaving Frieda on the floor.
Slater drags Sarah into a room where Frida, who used a shard of glass to save her own life, is holding a knife. Slater grabs her knife and Frida thinks he’s going to kill her, but he says he won’t because she’s his best friend.
As Slater prepares to slash Sarah’s throat, he suddenly becomes disoriented, having smoked an e-cigarette pen. When Frieda escapes from the ropes, it is revealed that Slater had laced his e-cigarette with the memory erasing perfume he used on the women.
Slater trips and falls, knocking over several candles and spreading the fire, and Frida and Sarah rescue him before the whole building is engulfed in flames and a presumably seriously injured Vic is killed.
“You need a vacation,” Frida tells Sarah.
Frida finally got what she wanted.
Shawkat as Jess and Akki as Frida in “Blink Twice.” Amazon MGM Studios
Frida, Sarah and Slater are the only survivors of the journey. It is unclear what happened after this brawl, but Frida’s life took a dramatic turn for the better and she rose steadily through the social ranks.
The film ends with another KingTech gala, presumably held the following year.
At the event, Rich approached Slater and asked if they could continue the discussion, but Slater seemed unable to understand what Rich was saying. Frieda, who married Slater and had cut her hair long, interjected, telling Slater that Rich would not be able to attend because she was going to Beijing next week.
Frida then gives Slater some vape liquid that likely contains the memory-erasing Desideria substance and tells him to eat a steak. Her comments are reminiscent of the scene earlier in the film, during their first dinner on the island, when Slater tells Frida that he won’t eat red meat, and Frida agrees and chooses not to eat red meat either.
Now their relationship has been reversed, with Frieda regularly altering Slater’s memories with e-liquid, suggesting she is controlling him.
A man on stage then calls her Frida King, CEO of Kingtech, and the entire audience applauds, and the film ends with Frida having her champagne glasses refilled by a cocktail waitress.
The final scene emphasises the film’s exploration of power and dynamics between men and women.
Ackie as Frida and Tatum as Slater King in “Blink Twice.” Amazon MGM Studios
The final scene marks a full-circle moment for Frida, who is no longer invisible: she is in a position of power and no longer subordinate to men.
“I wanted to tell a story that explores what happens when women stop following the rules,” Kravitz said in a statement included in Blink Twice’s production notes.
Growing up in Hollywood thanks to his parents, Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, Kravitz said he saw, experienced and heard things that inspired him to make a film about male-female dynamics. Kravitz added that the film is not about any one person.
“This is about people,” she writes. “Women are told to smile all the time, every day. We are expected to ‘forget’ moments of discomfort, fear and abuse and continue to pretend we’re having fun. We are expected to play the game.”
The film ends with Frida in full command and control, while Slater remains her empty-headed puppet.
“This isn’t a story about empowerment,” Kravitz said. “It’s a story about power.”
“Blink Twice” is now in theaters.
