The producers of the new psychological thriller Blink Twice have issued a trigger warning ahead of the film’s cinema release this weekend.
The movie marks Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut and hits cinemas on Friday (August 23) and stars Kravitz’s real-life partner Channing Tatum, alongside Naomi Ackie, Christian Slater and Kyle MacLachlan. It is based on an original screenplay by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum.
In the film, Ackie’s cocktail waitress Frida meets Tatum’s tech billionaire Slater and joins him on his private island for a luxury party, only for things to go wrong when Frida’s friend vanishes. See the film’s trailer below.
To prepare audiences ahead of its release, Amazon MGM Studios has issued a warning about the film’s “upsetting” scenes on social media. “We are proud to finally share ‘Blink Twice’ with audiences in theatres worldwide this week,” they wrote.
“’Blink Twice’ is a psychological thriller about the abuse of power, while this is a fictionalised movie, it contains themes and depictions of violence – including sexual violence,” they added. “This may be upsetting or triggering for some viewers.”
In a four-star review of the film, NME wrote: “Hitting boiling point at just the right moment, it’s also sharply written, with whip-smart dialogue (“that’s going to open up beautifully” is one line that gets repeated with a superb pay-off) throughout. And as you might expect given her father Lenny’s musical acumen, Kravitz gives all the action a brilliant soundtrack with the music of James Brown and especially Chaka Khan’s ‘Ain’t Nobody’ used perfectly.
“Kravitz’s real-life fiancé Tatum oozes charisma, he hasn’t been this good since wrestling drama Foxcatcher a decade ago. But just shading it is Ackie, who takes a real bite out of her role. After her Whitney Houston turn in I Wanna Dance With Somebody was somewhat overlooked, it’s heartening to see the British star in such a gutsy role that grabs you by the lapels. Relax? You won’t be able to on this vacation from hell.”
Tatum recently said that he went to dark places to play his “psychopathic” character. “It’s the first time I’ve ever played anyone [like this]…Every character I play, I usually have some sort of love for or a connection to,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ll ever tell anybody what I had to create inside my head to play this person,” he continued. “He’s a psychopath.”
Kravitz’s original title for the film was Pussy Island, but was forced to change it. “It was made very clear to me that ‘pussy’ is a word that we, our society, are not ready to embrace yet,” she has said. “There were a lot of roadblocks along the way, whether it be the MPAA not wanting to put it on a poster, or a billboard, or a kiosk; movie theaters not wanting to put it on a ticket.”
She also added that “interestingly enough, after researching it, women were offended by the word, and women seeing the title were saying, ‘I don’t want to see that movie,’ which is part of the reason I wanted to try and use the word, which is trying to reclaim the word, and not make it something that we’re so uncomfortable using.”
“But we’re not there yet,” Kravitz continued. “And I think that’s something I have the responsibility as a filmmaker to listen to. I care about people seeing the film, and I care about how it makes people feel.”
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