Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut, Blink Twice, is a stylish thriller about a tech billionaire’s private where a woman’s dream vacation turns into a nightmare.

Slater King (Channing Tatum) is a tech billionaire who meets a cocktail waitress named Frida (Naomi Ackie) at his lavish fundraising event. After a few awkward interactions, Slater invites Frida along with her roommate Jess (Ali Shawkat) to party on his private island. Slater’s entourage joins the party as well (Simon Rex, Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment). They’re the kind of guys you expect to see hanging around a tech mogul. A few other women join as well, and Frida finds herself competing with Sarah (Adria Arjona) for Slater’s affection.

Frida and Jess party and participate in the dreamiest of dream vacations, but something feels off for Jess. When Jess goes missing, Frida notices something is off, and the other girls don’t remember Jess. There are also unexplained bruises, dirt under her nails, and she feels like she’s not having a good time but not sure why.

As Frida looks to find out what happened to her friend, the mysteries of Slater’s Island start to reveal themselves. Frida’s dream vacation turns into a nightmare she must escape.

Blink Twice is a thriller with an A+ premise that feels a little uneven with its approach to the bigger social issues broached in the film. The film starts very entertaining and surprisingly funny. When Kravitz and company reveal what’s happening in the third act, it introduces social issues like privilege, exploitation, class, trauma, and sexual assault. Those are great concepts to infuse in this thriller, but they don’t get enough time on screen or in dialogue for them to have any real impact.

There is a scene that showcases the big issue with the film. It takes place in the third act with two characters walking in slow motion to Beyonce’s “I’m That Girl”; it’s a great shot but doesn’t fit with the film. There are plenty of great scenes, sequences, meme worthy lines. They all work independently, but they fit in a cohesive story.

The biggest culprit is the film’s final scene. It’s a great note to end the film on but none of how that happened is even explained. I’m glad the story got there but it would help to audience to know how they got to this point. It feels like there’s an extra 15 minutes on the cutting room floor that would help answer some questions.

What works very well is Kravitz ability to capture a creeping sense of unease as the film ramps up to a bloody conclusion. For her first theatrical debut, it’s impressive what Kravitz is able to convey onscreen. She was able to user her skills as director and co-write (along with E.T Feigenbaum) to put the audience in the middle of Slater’s island and feel a growing anxiety along with Frida.

Despite the unevenness and how disconnected some of the scenes are, Blink Twice is an entertaining enough for most audiences to enjoy. It is a much darker and sinister film than the trailers show. Thankfully Amazon MGM Studios put out a trigger warning for those that might need it. Blink Twice made two things clear – Channing Tatum needs to play more villains and Zoe Kravitz may have a second career as a director.

Grade: B-