Blink Twice (15, 103 mins)
Verdict: This decade’s Get Out
Has Halloween come early this year? It appears so, judging by the unseasonal onslaught of scary movies hitting cinemas.
And, if you’ve already survived Alien: Romulus and Trap, brace yourself for more summer darkness with a reboot of The Crow (out today; mercifully no advance press screenings), next week’s sci-fi horror AfrAId (likewise), plus British chiller Broken Bird, followed by folk horror Starve Acre and a Beetlejuice sequel that squeaks out just as school holidays end.
After that, we’ll all need a lie down in a nice, dark crypt.
Today, two additional hair- raisers are unleashed. The better of them, Blink Twice, marks the directorial debut of actress Zoë Kravitz — best known as the daughter of music legend Lenny and for playing Catwoman.
As such, Blink Twice had all the hallmarks of a ‘nepo baby’ plaything, yet confounded my (low) expectations by being genuinely good.
Channing Tatum is chillingly good as a disgraced tech billionaire who invites two waitresses to a holiday in hell (pictured: Channing Tatum)
Channing Tatum, from left, Naomi Ackie, director Zoë Kravitz and actor Levon Hawke on the set of Blink Twice.
When we first meet our heroine, Frida (Naomi Ackie), she is scrolling through Instagram, watching a confessional video made by disgraced tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) apologising for his ‘abuse of power’.
Later on, Frida is working as a waitress at the charismatic Slater’s swanky fundraiser, when she and best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) don slinky dresses to catch his eye – and get invited to stay on his luxury private island.
To ensure Slater’s privacy, all phones are confiscated by his nervy PA (Geena Davis). Suddenly, Frida is swept into the kind of super- VIP bubble that she has only ever glimpsed through Instagram (yet which Kravitz herself would have observed first hand) — a ‘tsunami’ of Champagne, Michelin-starred food, designer clothes and MDMA-fuelled partying with beautiful girls like Sarah (Adria Arjona) and the host’s pals (played by Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment and Kyle MacLachlan).
All seems ‘great!!!’ (as everyone keeps gushing at each other), yet something evil is clearly slithering through this Eden…
Channing Tatum and Naomi Ackie in a scene from Blink Twice
Channing Tatum, left, and director Zoa Kravitz on the set of Blink Twice
The immaculate Glass Onion/White Lotus style is seductive, but there’s more to this psychological thriller than good looks. Kravitz mixes up a provocative MeToo cocktail of cancel culture, forgiveness, female solidarity, the lure of social media and taking responsibility for one’s past, and does so in a way that is brilliantly entertaining and wildly funny.
Kravitz is an impressively precise director. She takes us into seriously dark territory, yet the movie’s tone barely stumbles.
She’s hot on casting, too. Her real-life fiancé Tatum hasn’t done proper acting like this for a decade and puts in a storming turn.
And let’s hope rising Brit star Ackie gets the acclaim she missed out on after her Whitney Houston biopic, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, failed to catch fire.
As usual, the trailer gives way too much away, and thus is best avoided. Maybe not one for a first date, but otherwise a sure-fire hit.
Cuckoo (15, 102 mins)
Verdict: Well-named horror oddity
There’s more gore in paradise, courtesy of Cuckoo. This head-scratching horror features former Downton heartthrob Dan Stevens as Herr Konig (right), a mad Bavarian scientist who runs a remote Alpine resort by day and likes to tootle on his wooden recorder (not a euphemism) in his spare time.
Latest guests to his snowy retreat are a fractured family who have relocated from the US to Germany. There’s sulky 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), her father (Marton Csokas), his new wife (Jessica Henwick) and their eight-year-old daughter, an elective mute called Alma (Mila Lieu), who starts behaving very oddly. Along with everybody else.
The eerie atmosphere is masterfully conjured; far less so the storytelling (pictured: Cuckoo film art)
Sulky 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) in Cuckoo
Oddest of all is the screeching bogeylady in the forest, notable for her rain bonnet, Gary Larson sunglasses and single soggy hand. Still not sure what that was all about.
At 25, Euphoria star Schafer is clearly too old to play a teen, yet she is a mesmerising presence, and it’s thrilling to see her spread her wings on the big screen.
The eerie atmosphere is masterfully conjured; far less so the storytelling. Schafer and Stevens just about keep you invested in the weird goings-on.
But the cuckoo-in-the-nest concept is underdeveloped while, ironically, the demented mystery plot becomes less clear the more that is revealed. By the climax I was so brain-boggled that a cartoon bird may well have been springing out of my forehead.
All films are in cinemas now.
An intoxicating celebration of France’s first lady of fizz
Widow Clicquot (15, 90 mins, ★★★✩✩) is a soothingly picturesque biopic of the legendary ‘Grande Dame of Champagne’, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin (a career-best Haley Bennett).
After her troubled husband (Tom Sturridge) dies in 1805, a grieving ‘Veuve’ (French for ‘widow’) Clicquot resolves to run their vineyard ‘like a woman’, much to the pooh-pooh-ing of the men around her. ‘You make it sound like a dinner party,’ one scoffs of her radical collaborative ideas.Yet Barbe-Nicole proves them wrong, invents pink fizz, and sets out to beat Napoleon’s trade blockades with the support of her loyal distributor (Sam Riley).
Sensual and lightly intoxicating, with more complexity than meets the eye, this sparkling tribute to France’s foremost female entrepreneur slips down a treat — despite a few flat moments.
Hayley Bennett poses upon arrival at the special screening for the film ‘Widow Clicquot’ on August 21 in London
In Between The Temples (15, 111 mins, ★★★✩✩), a depressed 40-something synagogue cantor (Jason Schwartzman) gets his chutzpah back after he reconnects with his old music teacher (Carol Kane).
Less predictable than that summary suggests, this New York romantic comedy drama enjoys jangling your expectations, upending conventions at every turn. Lurching from tiresome to tender, it most obviously appeals to community insiders who can appreciate the Jewish in-jokes. But the dysfunctional family scenes would make anyone laugh with recognition.
Caroline Aaron and Dolly De Leon all but steal the show as overbearing moms, while the odd-couple chemistry between Schwartzman and Kane shouldn’t work, yet does — just like this movie.
I wouldn’t want to spend a real night out with the proud-to-be ‘lowlife scum’ of Kneecap (18, 105 mins, ★★★★✩), but an evening at the pictures with them is an absolute blast.
A ‘Troubles’ tale with a cheeky difference, this is the outrageous, ‘mostly true’ origin story of a potty-mouthed hip-hop trio called Kneecap, formed by two young Belfast drug dealers and a teacher (Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh — all effortlessly playing themselves), who rap mainly in the Irish language.
Rich Peppiatt (l) and other cast members attend a preview and Q&A for Kneecap on August 22
‘Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom,’ intones Michael Fassbender as one of their dads, an IRA fugitive who the lads both heed and take the mick out of.
Writer/director Rich Peppiatt’s script takes a similarly irreverent tone, its intelligence and wit belying a cartoonish attitude towards violence and anti-social behaviour. Boasting unstoppable, Trainspotter-level energy, Ireland’s entry to the 2025 Oscars may just go all the way to nomination.
