Zoe Kravitz’s debut is a deeply entertaining revenge epic in which the rich get eaten

Zoe Kravitz, Lenny’s daughter, grew up in a world of privilege and glamour. So it makes sense that she explores that—and the monsters within it—in her first film as a director: a psychological thriller set on the private island of a tech-bro billionaire and a deeply entertaining, if feeble, tale of feminist, eat-the-rich revenge.

Frida (Naomi Ackie) is a minimum wage worker for a catering company and a part-time nail technician who lives with her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat). At one of the events she works at, she hits it off with Slater King, the aforementioned billionaire played by Channing Tatum with his trademark loose, swaggering charm. Seemingly on a whim, he invites Frida and Jess, along with a small group of friends, to his tropical island.

Upon arrival, Frida and her friends are told to stash their phones in a bag and hand them to Slater’s assistant (played by a manic Geena Davis in a fun, small role). This is ostensibly to create a relaxed atmosphere and minimize the complications of real life. The same goes for the identical matching white outfits for the female guests—white bikinis and sarongs for the day, white cocktail dresses for the evening, as if they were at a spa. It’s weird, but maybe that’s just how rich people operate, Frida reasons to her friend.

Here it changes from a funny, cheerful film, capturing the luxury of an endless beach holiday with a “tsunami of champagne” and boutique drugs, into something overwhelmingly, shockingly dark. The ominous hints of something untoward on the island become too great to ignore, and the tone changes abruptly.

The women of the island – largely diverse and flashy up until now – must band together to fight back against the bizarre and horrific mind control plan they find themselves trapped in.

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Kravitz owes a lot to Jordan Peele’s paradigm shift Go away – like in that movie, a fish out of water character realizes that there is a conspiracy against them taking place right under their noses. But Blink twice doesn’t delve deeply into the topics it touches on, such as sexual exploitation, white privilege, cancel culture, and wealth, and moves too quickly in its plot to dwell on the details, making it much less powerful.

The final act is a hyper-violent, cathartic exploration of trauma; it doesn’t exactly break new ground, but Kravitz has style and good timing, and Ackie is fantastic in the lead role, capable of pulling off both cool girl goodness and absolute eye-rolling horror.