Flowers, Snakes, and Incomplete Takes: Blink Twice’s Traumatic Shortcomings
TW: This article contains descriptions and discussions of sexual violence.
Trauma bond. Trauma dump. Trauma porn. Each more provocative than the last, the words that tend to follow “trauma” rarely imply anything good. It’s no surprise, then, that filmic depictions of trauma often fall into a voyeuristic, masochistic rabbit hole. Zoë Kravitz’s late summer release, Blink Twice, chases an authentic portrayal of MeToo’s postmortem that it simply will never reach.
Blink Twice follows Frida, a cocktail waitress and nail technician yearning for fame and fortune. The fame and fortune in question are embodied by big tech’s richest–namely, Slater King. King, the CEO of King Tech, is on an apology tour for undetermined “past behavior” and is supposedly healing on a private island he purchased. One catered event, two sexy dresses, and a magical night later, Frida and her roommate Jess end up on the island, where their phones are confiscated and their needs are tended to, hand-and-foot.
Their journey there begins as a delicious mixed cocktail of tropical fruits, island ambrosia, and playful naughtiness. An entourage of rich white men and beautiful women (mostly) of color crowd every scene. Just as soon as questions about the ills of paradise arise, they are squashed by more of the same: psychedelic drugs, gourmet food, pristine white clothing, and hibiscus-like flowers native to the island. The flowers appear in the women’s perfume and at nightly dinners. After an extensive and redundant exposition full of lotus-eating, the mirage of perfection fades when Jess inexplicably disappears. No one but Frida notices, and soon after, Frida finds several incongruent signs of trouble in paradise, like a bruise on her shoulder and dirt under her fingernails.
The facade folds–rather unsurprisingly–when Frida and fellow islander Sarah stumble upon a canonically clear antidote to their memory loss: a snake’s green venom. It’s no surprise that an Indigenous woman and villa worker shares this with them—she’s been drinking it all along. This was perhaps the only part of Blink Twice that directly spoke to the colonialist occupation of King and his staff. Once the venom unveils the women’s memories, we learn that the men have been serially raping and abusing the women each night. The floral perfume causes amnesia. At their epiphanies, a Tarantino-esque bloodbath ensues, full of supposed revenge and expository admissions. The film concludes with Frida and King at a benefit at a later time, now married. Frida is now the King Tech CEO, and she drugs King through his vape to keep him complacent.
It’s all a little too on the nose. The meticulously excellent production design and stylized, symmetrical cinematography relies on color to do much of the storytelling. Perfection is conveyed by pure whites, limited and saturated palettes, and symmetry, while the undoing of perfection is represented in the green venom, dirt, and blood. If we consider Blink Twice as simply engaging in the dichotomy of hidden ugliness, the symbolism earns a perfect 10. However, when we add in the tremendous themes Blink Twice tackles, our understanding becomes much more complicated. Blink Twice bit off far more than it could chew.
Blink Twice joins a class of films that attempt to reconcile with hundreds of years of sexual trauma, much of which converged at the peak of #MeToo. It’s akin to Men, Bombshell, Promising Young Woman, and Zola, all of which offer a portrayal of, and sometimes a solution to, the aftermath of sexual violence. But what Blink Twice lacks is simple: a point. It’s an ill-fated response to this built-up, communal trauma. It tries to answer the question many are left with after sexual assault: what now? How can justice and healing be concurrently pursued? I don’t have an answer, but I know it’s not by brainwashing our rapists and taking over their colonial empires. Material gain is not confrontation or mediation. The cult of a femme vigilante “badass” narrative assumes that the act of rape has a winner, and that it can be subverted through revenge. Trauma can never be perfectly replicated, and attempting to do so only continues the cycle of harm. Frankly, Blink Twice is an irresponsible byproduct of late stage capitalism. Frida’s eventual success suggests that reparation can be achieved by reinforcing the same colonizing mindsets that informed the original harm.
Regardless of what happens after Frida leaves the island, depictions of the act of rape are a tricky narrative tool. While, for the sake of Kravitz’s script, showing the literal act of rape might be necessary, it raises bigger questions about why. Rape scenes are shown in brief, extremely graphic flashbacks. They are just as designed and stylized as every other shot in the film. Amazon MGM and Warner Brothers did issue a content warning in the promotional materials, where they described the film as “a psychological thriller about the abuse of power,” warning viewers of “mature themes and depictions of violence - including sexual violence.” However, many viewers did not feel adequately warned about the extent of the sexual violence. Kravitz responded by saying “Not everyone had the media literacy to recognize what it was going to be about…I think it seems like people thought it wouldn’t be so realistic…or maybe [were] just looking for [the violence] to be more implied.” Her comments propose that the fault of profoundly disturbed viewers is their own, rather than a shortcoming of the trigger warning. They defer responsibility.
We are in a mass response to both depictions of and experiences of trauma. Even those who have not experienced “trauma” have seen it–or, for the worse, are unaware they’ve experienced it. So what do we make of a world full of people reacting? The film itself is cognizant of this question, but fails to critically engage with it. While Blink Twice attempts to cynically critique the capitalist systems that influence reactions to trauma, it falls into the trap of replicating what it fights against. It portrays trauma as easily fixed, even while toying with the idea that it must be reckoned with. Ultimately, Blink Twice falls prey to the venom of shock factor, abandoning any justice it could have provided.