What is Blink Twice about?
Blink Twice joins a long line of rape-revenge films that started with Bergman’s The Virgin Spring and has continued through the decades with films like The Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, Red Sonja, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Promising Young Woman. Kravitz brings the genre into a post-#MeToo world. It also looks at the story in context of the social media age, playing on modern aspects of society that involve influencers and reality-versus-Instagram. As modern as the film’s sensibilities are, it’s based on aspects of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, so there’s a timelessness to it as well. Ultimately, Blink Twice is a reminder of the power women have when they work together and support one another.
Cast
- Frida – Naomi Ackie
- Jess – Alia Shawkat
- Sarah – Adria Arjona
- Camilla – Liz Caribel
- Heather – Trew Mullen
- Slater King – Channing Tatum
- Vic – Christian Slater
- Cody – Simon Rex
- Tom – Haley Joel Osment
- Lucas – Levon Hawke
- Stacy – Geena Davis
- Rich – Kyle Maclachlan
- Maid – María Elena Olivares
- Stan – Cris Costa
- Written by – Zoë Kravitz | E.T. Feigenbaum
- Directed by – Zoë Kravitz
Plot analysis of Blink Twice
Set-up
- We’re in Frida’s perspective so limited to what she knows.
- Frida and Jess live in a not-so-great apartment and work as servers for a banquet hall.
- How Frida initially comes across Slater King’s apology video makes it seem like an organic thing she stumbled upon. That’s furthered when we see her go down a whole rabbit hole about the guy. Except we soon find out she had met him briefly at the King Tech gala the year before. So her curiosity suddenly feels more like stalking.
- The stalker vibe is reinforced by shots of Frida staring at Slater during the fundraiser. Without any additional context, you wonder if he’s the one who needs to be worried about her.
- When she falls, we don’t know if it was genuine or something done on purpose in the hopes of getting Slater’s attention. Regardless, Slater comes to her aid then brings her and Jess into his VIP area and suddenly all of Frida’s dreams are coming true.
- Slater introduces her to his therapist, Rich. Frida makes the joke “Blink twice if I’m in danger,” playing on the idea that the therapist knows everything about Slater and could warn her if something was wrong. It’s meant as a joke. And, in that same vein, Rich blinks twice.
- Slater’s told it’s time to leave so says goodbye to Frida. Her window to win his attention has officially closed. But then he hurries back and asks if she and Jess want to come to his island. This is more than Frida could have hoped.
Escalation
- The island is beautiful. Everyone gathers on the steps for a picture. Vic has a huge, old school Polaroid with an intense flash. Anyone who has ever had their picture taken by one knows how blinding the flash is; it’s hard not to blink. So there’s a bit of meta-humor when the flash happens and we see the title card, Blink Twice. But we know from the earlier dialogue that “blink twice” means someone’s in danger. So this moment is also a formal sign that the danger has started.
- As beautiful as the island is, there are strange elements. The leftover perfume and lip gloss. The maid who says “red rabbit”. The lash vipers. Stacy taking the cell phones away.
- Sarah’s initially presented as a competitor for Slater. We are set-up not to like her because we think she’s with Cody and pursuing this other guy. When Cody calls her “babe” and she tells him not to do that, it seems like a red flag in terms of her character.
- A viper bites Jess. She’s the first to realize something is wrong. But Frida, self-interested, begs Jess to be cool, saying, “For the first time in my life, I’m here and I’m not invisible.” Jess calms down for Frida’s sake. But her memories fully come back. When Slater realizes she remembers, he snaps her neck. The next day, everyone but Frida forgets jess.
- The maid convinces Frida to drink the lash viper venom. Then screams “red rabbit” over and over. Reference to The Shining’s “redrum” scene where Danny seems scary but it turns out he’s simply possessed and trying to warn his mom that Jack intends to murder them. Similar thing here. The maid’s trying to get Frida to remember being there the year before and yelling “red rabbit” because that was the nail design Frida had then.
- The venom eventually begins to counteract the effects of the memory-wiping perfume.
Reaction
- After the guys leave for a fishing trip, Frida and Sarah have time to bond and they realize something is wrong. You can see more of the parable-like aspects of the story emerge. It’s a patriarchy that keeps women distracted to take advantage of them. Once the men are gone and the women have time to compare notes, perception of their time on the island shifts. Jess was, unfortunately, ahead of the curve and on her own and so eliminated. There’s a moment between Frida and Sarah where Frida says, “So you don’t think I’m crazy?” And Sarah responds with, “What’s crazy is that we got onto a plane with a bunch of dudes we don’t know.” It’s a demonstration of “women believing women” and how powerful that can be.
- Sarah straight up says, “Of course they’re f***ing with our heads. Because that’s what they do. They distract us with these cute little outfits. And they shower us with raspberries and champagne. But you know what? We know what’s really going on. They’re trying to control us. They’re trying to make us look crazy. And it’s working.”
- The next portion is about freeing Camilla, Heather, and Stacy from the effects of the perfume by getting the women to drink lash viper venom infused tequila. You can view this as growing a movement, a rebellion within the patriarchy.
- Frida finds a bunch of photographs of people leaving the island with gift bags. Then shortly after her memories start to return. Photographs are usually symbolic for memory. So while the photos themselves don’t do anything, story-wise, to trigger Frida’s recollection, their appearance serves more as an external representation for what’s going on inside of her.
- Men return and Frida and Sarah have to pretend to be the same “pick me” girls they were before, more concerned with the short-term indulgences than anything else. But the charade is difficult to maintain. This peaks at dinner. To keep up appearances and keep from blowing their cover, Frida and Sarah dance on a table while “Ain’t Nobody” by Chaka Khan plays.
- A brief flashback shows us a glimpse of the assaults that would happen at night and how the men would treat the women. It’s horrific. And Rich, the therapist, is there. It’s a pay-off to earlier when Frida saw Rich on the island and said she remembered him. He’s initially freaked out but then she says “from the gala” and you can see how relieved he is that Slater’s “make ‘em forget” perfume really worked.
- Camilla and Heather’s memories return and all hell breaks loose. The women get to unleash all their anger and frustration. Casualties mount: Cody, Tom, Camilla, Heather, Stan. Vic is paralyzed.
- Stacy confronts Frida and is actually mad. She says she didn’t want to remember. This represents how older generations sometimes struggle to embrace the movements of younger generations, especially when it comes to trauma. And it also ties back to the idea of women supporting one another. Stacy is an example of an oppressed person who sides with the oppressors, because that’s easier for her than fighting. The death of Stacy would represent the end of that way of thinking, or at least a kind of “We’re not giving you space anymore.” Which is why we get that bit of dialogue where a stabbed Stacy says “Help me” and Frida responds, “Bitch, I tried.”
- It’s revealed that Lucas has had his memory wiped like the women. It’s unclear if that’s because he was also a victim or if he simply didn’t agree with what was happening. Once he understands what’s been happening, he tries to help but Sarah shoots him, unaware that Lucas was actually an ally.
- Slater regains the upper hand. Takes Frida prisoner.
- Her memory from last year returns. The scar on her temple was from an escape attempt that ended with a fall; her head hit on a rock. Shot of the lizard from the very beginning of the movie. Vic didn’t have a pinky because Frida had bit it off.
- Slater gives his big speech about forgiveness. Ties back to the TikTok video from the opening scene and how he had tried to regain his reputation after a scandal. He’s still upset that people never forgave him. They just forgot to keep blaming him.
- Slater: You wanna know what’s not real? Forgiveness. I’ll show you. I, Slater King, would like to formally apologize for my behavior. I sought therapy and I’m going to a leave of absence from my company, while I face these issues head on. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! IMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRY. So are we good? No? That’s right. There is no forgiveness. There’s just forgetting. There’s just forgetting.
- Slater captures Sarah and is about to slit her throat when his memory suddenly vanishes. Frida had spiked his vape with the forgetting perfume.
- The main building is on fire. Sarah and Frida escape. Frida brings Slater.
Conclusion
- A year later, we’re back at the King Tech gala. Rich tries to talk to Slater but he seemingly doesn’t remember who Rich is. When Rich tries to schedule a one-on-one time for them to talk, Frida appears and shuts it down.
- Frida and Slater are married. She’s now CEO of King Tech.
Blink Twice’s themes and meaning
Blink Twice uses what happens on the island as a parable for society. What’s interesting is that Kravitz used the basic idea of the Garden of Eden as a reference point. Adam and Eve get to live in paradise, until a snake convinces them to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They had been blissfully unaware of the negative aspects of the world and themselves. But once they eat the fruit, they awaken to feelings like shame, guilt, fear, etc. God casts them out of Paradise and thus humans inherited the Earth and were left to do the best with the knowledge they now possessed.
We see a similar flow in Blink Twice. Things start off paradisiacal and the women are unaware of any evil. Until they interact with a snake. Only then do they suddenly gain this knowledge of the terrible things happening. Eden becomes a kind of hell they must escape.
Kravitz applies this to our modern society. Essentially saying that women have existed in a patriarchy that distracts them from what’s really going on. Part of this distraction is to keep women like Frida and Sarah in a cold war over the attention of Slater King. Viewers, too, aren’t supposed to like Sarah because we think she’s standing in the way of what our protagonist, our perspective character, Frida, wants. The patriarchy fosters a society where women compete with one another rather than work together.
The more knowledge Frida and Sarah gain, the closer they become. The more reliant on one another they are. Until their survival legitimately depends on each other. The scenes before the island and after the island represent the world under the illusion versus with knowledge. When Frida doesn’t know any better, she’s a struggling nail-design entrepreneur whose obsession is the attention of a man. Once Frida has the knowledge from the island and comes back to the world, she becomes the damn CEO and starts running things.
It’s an aspirational statement Kravitz makes. Patriarchy limits the opportunities for women. But once that is torn down and women aren’t hampered by “perfume”, the limits are gone. The glass ceiling is gone. They can be whatever they want to be.
That’s the big theme and statement in Blink Twice. But we should also consider Slater’s forgiveness speech. His character arc starts with the apology video and the media about his attempts to grow, make amends, and be a better person. He begins by saying he needs to “stop and smell the flowers.” Which is a nice bit of foreshadowing since the perfume that makes the women forget comes from the flower on the island. When we meet Slater a few minutes later, he’s a seemingly great guy. And that image lasts for nearly an hour of runtime. We think this because we don’t know anything about what he did. The movie never tells us what his major transgression was. Because we don’t know, we give him the benefit of the doubt and judge him by what we see.
Of course, we discover he is a terrible person. And that everything we’ve seen was just a facade. His apologies, his interviews, his philanthropy—all a way to make people forget what he did. Because he doesn’t believe people will ever truly forgive him. That’s the context of his “I’m sorry” monologue. He’s giving this “heartfelt” apology to Frida, screaming “I’m sorry” at her. Does that actually change anything? No. There’s no way she would, at that point, forgive him. Which is why he believes in forgetting. Because then there’s nothing to forgive.
You can view everything with Slater as its own theme. With Slater representing pop culture figures who get exposed then try to make a comeback. And how performative it often is. Do these people really change? Or do they just put on the necessary performance? Do they truly feel bad or do they simply blame everyone else for blaming them? It would also be critiquing the public as well. The reason people like Slater King can return is because people forget.
I would imagine the two statements blend together. Essentially, Blink Twice makes a larger commentary on how we as a society let ourselves become distracted by consumerism and social media, all of our superficial desires sold to us by our corporate overlords and the influencers who profit off of our attention. As gender-focused as Blink Twice is, and as much as its concerned with men taking advantage of women, it applies to everyone. There’s an ‘us versus them” dynamic between the people in power and those of us who wear the perfume because it makes us feel fancy.
You could also extend the conversation to social media and the aspirations people have to be living an Instagram life. Part of the modern “dream” is to go from looking at people on social media to living like them. You hear about Slater King’s island, then you’re on the island! When Frida has that vulnerable moment with Jess, she says, “For the first time in my life, I’m here and I’m not invisible.” It might be a bit of a reach but I think about the specificity of feeling seen and how that relates to social media views and impressions. Sarah having been on a show called How Survivor Babes for eight seasons also makes her a minor celebrity, someone who would have a social following. So Frida “beating” Sarah for Slater’s attention kind of plays into this idea that Frida’s getting to not only be in the same place as this famous person but does it better. Only for the twist to be that the pursuit of this superficiality has had very real, very horrific consequences. The reality of the Instagram life, and the people living it, isn’t what it seems.
The origin of the “blink twice if…” phrase
The phrase “Blink Twice” is associated with the idea of “Blink once if you’re okay, twice if you’re in danger.” It’s usually a comment made in jest. When we hear it in the film, it’s right after Frida has gained Slater’s attention at the King Tech afterparty. Slater introduces her to Rich, his therapist, and she jokingly says, “Blink twice if I’m in danger,” since a therapist would know how much of a red flag their patient is.
The origin of the phrase isn’t, as far as I could find, certain, but my guess is that it comes from the story of Admiral Jeremiah Denton. Denton, a pilot on a bombing mission in the Vietnam War, became a prisoner of war after his plane went down and the Northern Vietnamese soldiers captured him. That was 1965. His confinement lasted for eight years. Early on, he had this famous moments when his captors made a propaganda video that became international news. In the video, a Vietnamese man asks Denton about his imprisonment. He says “I get adequate food and adequate clothing, and medical care when I require it.” Which makes it seem like he has decent conditions. But, while he spoke, he kept blinking oddly. Short blinks. Long blinks. It turns out, he was blinking in morse code, and spelled out the word “torture”. You can watch the video here.
I would suggest Denton’s story became a pop culture moment that gave rise to various jokes and references to blinking to signal you’re in a bad situation but can’t say anything because your captor is right there. You could imagine that one of those references became more popular than the rest and evolved over time to the phrase we have today.
How did the memory wipe work?
It seems Slater bought the island because it had the flower that only grew there and could be used, somehow, to cause people to forget traumatic memories. The local snake population happened to counteract the effects of the flower.
The thing to keep in mind is that the movie is a metaphor that relies on the audience suspending disbelief. It’s not meant to be taken literally. As we talked about, the island becomes a play on the Garden of Eden story. Which is why the snakes are part of the knowledge-gaining process.
Why did Rich act like he didn’t know Frida?
Because he had sexually assaulted her the night before and was worried Slater’s memory wipe perfume wasn’t as effective as advertised. When you re-watch the scene with that in mind, his reaction makes a lot more sense.
