First-time director Zoë Kravitz and her fiancé Channing Tatum’s new thriller Blink Twice has finally hit theaters, and with a twist ending like that, it seems fans will finally have something to discuss other than their joint red carpet appearances and Tatum’s viral Gambit memes. I had a chance to sit down with the stars of the film, Tatum and Naomi Ackie, and they discussed that massive climax and the challenges of playing a twist ending. First, let’s recap the twist in question.
WARNING. This article contains SPOILERS for Blink Twice beyond this point.
What Happens In Blink Twice's Twist Ending
Naomi Ackie’s Frida meets Channing Tatum’s Slater King, a tech billionaire recovering from his cultural shaming public cancellation. He invites her to join him, a gaggle of his degenerate friends and their dates to his private island which, at the time, seems like a dream come true for the broke, struggling Frida. During the day, they drink bottomless glasses of champagne, smoke weed and lounge by the pool. In the evening, they eat fancy dinners, trip on hallucinogenics and dance in the garden with reckless abandon. Late at night, however, something far more sinister is taking place.
In the third act, we find out that the women, plus one pretty young man known as their “resident wonder boy,” are subject to disturbing acts of sexual violence, only to completely forget about the traumatizing events by the following morning. This is because of a new drug Slater King has been pushing that blocks a person’s trauma from their memory. When Frida finds a box of old photographs that she herself is featured in, she also discovers that she’s been to the island before, only to have completely blocked it out. Even Slater King is regularly taking the drug to forget his own trauma, as we find out he’s been vaping it throughout the entire film.
Now it's starting to make more sense how the film got its original title, Pussy Island. Of course, once Frida discovers the cure (snake venom), she burns the place down and takes over Slater King’s empire, but that’s neither here nor there…
What The Alternate Version Of The Twist Was
When Frida finds the photograph, it’s clear that she’s been to the island at least once. There’s no definitive answer as to how many times the two of them have met, but during the film’s disturbing climax, Tatum’s Slater King does mention that he considers her to be his “best friend.” In the original version of the script, however, they made it much more clear that she had been to the island many times, but just couldn’t back that up while avoiding plotholes, as Channing Tatum explained:
We played with a lot of different other versions. At one point she had been there multiple, multiple times, not just one other time or whatever. And this has happened, like, a lot a lot. It was a little confusing and esoteric to draw out what that really would mean and justify it. So I think simplifying it was better.
This definitely makes sense. After all, wouldn’t Frida’s best friend Jess wonder where she was jetting off to all of the time? There’s just too much to juggle when the audience has to consider that the two of them have an extensive history.
How Blink Twice's Stars Approached Playing The Twist
What’s it like to shoot an entire film knowing a secret that the audience doesn’t? What if that secret is something so disturbing that most audiences probably haven’t seen anything like it on screen? For the villain, Channing Tatum, the job is comparatively simple. As he put it:
Knowing [the twist] is a weird thing to have to play. Poker faces is always the best face, I guess.
For Naomi Ackie, however, the gig is a lot more complicated. The audience experiences the twists and turns through Frida’s eyes, but Naomi Ackie has read the script and has to play the mystery and suspense with full knowledge of the outcome. Her approach to this is Shakespearian, as she explained:
I just played the circumstances. It's like the thing with Shakespearean tragedy. You don't play the tragedy, you play the thing before the thing. No one ever should know. You know what I mean?
Channing Tatum gave Naomi Ackie the proper props for dropping Shakespeare knowledge during an interview, and she gave herself a pat on the back for being a “thespian.” You can see the full exchange, in all of its ironic and charming humor, at the top of this article. You can also check out the whole interview on our YouTube page, which also features Zoë Kravitz herself.
Critics are currently gushing about what fun Blink Twice is, and everyone seems to be idealistic about Zoë Kravitz’ future as a director. Our own Blink Twice review even praises the way she “throws levity into startling situations.” You can see Blink Twice in theaters right now! For more updates on the 2024 movies schedule, keep it right here at CinemaBlend.
