Aahana Swrup
With Channing Tatum in the lead, ‘Blink Twice’ is a psychological thriller film wherein the eerie narrative seamlessly transports its characters—and the viewers—into a mercurial spiral accentuated with hedonistic extravagance. The story of Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut revolves around Frida, a cocktail waitress at a gala, who meets Slater King, a tech billionaire, and scores an invite to his private island for a vacation full of revelry and debauchery. Consequently, Frida and her best friend, Jess, jet off to King’s island, where their days are defined by one opulent non-stop party alongside the billionaire and his friends.
However, something sinister brews below the surface, which tears through the haze after Jess goes missing, leading to the realization that she no longer exists in many partygoers’ memories. Despite the cryptic and obscure nature of ‘Blink Twice,’ the film’s premise and themes invite intrigue about its origins in reality.
Blink Twice Started Out as a Novella by Zoë Kravitz
‘Blink Twice’ charts a riveting yet complex tale that holds no origins in a real-life story. Instead, the film is the brainchild of director Zoë Kravitz, who penned the screenplay alongside her friend and collaborator, screenwriter E.T. Feigenbaum. The first-time director began working on the project as far back as 2017 when she was working on the set of ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.’ The film’s shoot allowed the opportunity of downtime for the actress, during which she found herself working on a story that emerged from two simple words typed out on a Word doc: “Pussy Island.”
In a conversation with Esquire, Kravitz spoke about the experience and said, “I wrote this insane fever dream of a novella.” Shortly afterward, she included E.T. Feigenbaum — whom she had previously worked with on ‘High Fidelity‘ — in the creative process, and the two became co-writers of her passion project. From there, the undertaking remained a formidable task, undergoing new iterations and renditions with time. Kravitz’s project started to take shape in 2017, yet as the culture shifted over the years, so did the story.
“It was just the amount of time that it took to really get the script into the place we wanted it to be,” Kravitz told Entertainment Weekly. “(And) Interestingly enough, a lot of subject matters and things that are in the script kept on changing quite drastically culturally in the zeitgeist. So, of course, we had to rewrite and adapt to that as well, so there were many different versions of this world and of the story.” Ultimately, the project began filming in 2021, giving Kravitz around four years to flesh out the characters and their world.
Blink Twice Showcases the Reality of Power Struggle
Through the many changes that ‘Blink Twice’ underwent, the story retained its central themes and ideas. As per a 2022 Elle interview with Kravitz, the filmmaker found inspiration for her story from “the lack of conversation around the way women are treated specifically in the entertainment industry.” Naturally, as 2019 came around — bringing significant cultural conversations and movements with it — it left an impact on the project.
“I started writing it [‘Blink Twice’] pre–#MeToo, pre–Harvey [Weinstein],” Kravitz elaborated. “Then the world started to have the conversation, so [the script] changed a lot. It became more about a power struggle and what that power struggle means. I rewrote it a million times. Now we’re like, holy sh*t. We’re doing this!” As such, the film remains reminiscent of its cultural context, molding the tale around socially relevant themes portrayed within a narrative defined by its dark comedy elements. Consequently, even though real-life events aren’t connected to the film, the story parallels reality in its own surreal way.
The Possible Connection to a Greek Epic Poem
Even though ‘Blink Twice,’ previously set to be titled ‘Pussy Island,’ has no direct roots in reality save for Zoë Kravitz’s and her collaborators’ imagination, the film seems to naturally hold a connection to one of the oldest stories in history. Whether intentional or not, the narrative’s central premise resembles a part of an epic poem by Ancient Greek poet Homer — ‘The Odyssey,’ which features an island of Lotus-eaters. In Greek mythology, lotus-eaters are a group of people who live on an island where the primary source of sustenance is the lotus tree.
The Tree bears fruits and flowers that are laced with narcotics that drive the island-dwellers into a state of perpetual passivity. As a result, over time, the lotus-eaters reportedly begin to forget their past lives—the homes and the loved ones they might’ve once had—and remain confined to the island, luxuriating in its hedonistic pleasures. As such, Slater King’s private island in ‘Blink Twice’ seems to be a reference to the same as it operates within similar structures.
Even so, there aren’t any official links tying the film to the ancient Greek epic, rendering any similarities between the two speculative coincidences at best. As a film that delves into social commentary, ‘Blink Twice’ intrinsically highlights the gender-driven power struggle within society and its branching incriminations. Nonetheless, in doing so, it doesn’t draw from a real-life incident, charting an entirely fictitious tale.
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