Psychological manipulation and the desire for power: movie Blink Twice’s main lessons on human behavior.
An exotic island, a billionaire’s secret, and an unsettling truth—Blink Twice is more than a thriller. Kravitz’s debut delves into power, manipulation, and survival, challenging societal structures.
Psychological manipulation and gender dynamics are the core of Blink Twice, which exposes how one can manipulate insidiously. Themes in this film resonate beyond the screen into the realm of the actual: the abuse and trauma inflicted and the quest for control.
“I thought it was amazing. It had a very good plot twist… The whole movie concept. I liked it a lot, and I would recommend it to everyone,” Juana Upegui, senior, said.
The psychological impact of manipulation is a key element of the film, permitting the audience to understand how pressure and desire for power lead people to reach it no matter the cost.
“Well, it’s terrible; it’s something that historically has been very normal, even has been legal and part of cultures, but now we’re in times in which there has to be a balance of power,” Felipe Naranjo, AP Psychology teacher, said.
The constant need for power leads to an imbalance, meaning that consequences follow, especially for victims who witness manipulation from someone else. Their mental and emotional well-being becomes a risk.
“Statistics on sexual abuse… It’s like one out of three women or even more has been a victim. That’s devastating… there are many disorders associated with that, as you said, PTSD or a panic disorder,” Naranjo said.
Zoe Kravitz, the movie director herself, acknowledged the complexity of these themes and the challenge of portraying them authentically on screen, especially to viewers who have experienced similar situations.
“The whole time… we basically had to rewrite so many times because the culture and the conversation and what the characters would be aware of and how they would experience things kept changing,” Kravitz said in an interview from: Vanity Fair..
Beyond the film’s main theme of power, traditional expectations of female empowerment are also challenged, blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator.
“Frida doesn’t want Slater King, she wants to be Slater King. Power is this thing that she’s so attracted to… When talking about women, we talk about empowerment, but power feels masculine and empowerment feels feminine. I want to start using the word power when talking about women,” Kravitz emphasizes in the same interview.
The film’s end demonstrates nature’s vicious cycle of power, suggesting that people who fight against it, become what they despise.
“But the ending of Frida taking over and the cycle continuing, but now she’s in Slater’s position, was always the end… It makes people uncomfortable, but I wanted to make people the right level of uncomfortable,” Kravitz concludes.