102 min | R | August 23, 2024 | Amazon MGM Studios
Zoë Kravitz directs her first film about a tech billionaire’s island paradise that is actually a nightmare. The allegory is obvious. The execution is sharp. Naomi Ackie is a star.
Frida is a cocktail waitress who catches the eye of tech billionaire Slater King at a fundraising gala. He invites her and her friend Jess to his private island. The island is paradise. The drinks are free. The days blur together. Then Jess disappears and nobody remembers her. Frida starts to realize that the gaps in her memory are not accidents. Kravitz builds a thriller about predatory wealth and the systems designed to make victims forget they are victims. The allegory is not subtle. It does not need to be.
Naomi Ackie plays Frida with a watchfulness that sharpens into survival instinct. She is magnetic and grounded and the film revolves around her without crushing her. Channing Tatum plays Slater King with the practiced charm of a man who has apologized publicly and privately for nothing specific. The performance is smart. Tatum makes King likable enough that the audience understands why Frida says yes. Adria Arjona plays Jess with warmth that makes her absence felt. Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Haley Joel Osment, and Kyle MacLachlan play King’s inner circle with varying degrees of complicity.
Kravitz directs with a visual confidence that does not feel like a debut. The island is shot with sun-drenched beauty that becomes sinister. The party sequences have a hazy, drugged quality that mirrors Frida’s experience. The sound design shifts from tropical ease to something wrong. The film builds dread through repetition and gaps. Days reset. Conversations repeat. The audience knows something is wrong before Frida does and that knowledge is the horror.
The film is a post-MeToo thriller that does not name what it is about because the audience already knows. Kravitz uses the private island as a metaphor for every space where powerful men control the narrative and the memory of what happened. The ending is cathartic and violent and earned. This is a strong directorial debut from a filmmaker with clear instincts and something to say.