The parallel between ‘Blink Twice’ (2024) and the Gisèle Pélicot case

By Eve Mustin

What do cocktail waitress Frida from Blink Twice (2024) and Frenchwoman Gisèle Pélicot have in common? Both women are victims of drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA). Although director Zoë Kravitz began writing Blink Twice seven years ago, its story is ever relevant, as demonstrated by Gisèle Pélicot. The similarity between the violence committed against these two women is uncanny, and yet this tale of abuse is nothing new. Perhaps it’s more the timing of the two stories that is so unsettling.

Blink Twice is tells the story of Frida (Naomi Ackie), a cocktail waitress working at a gala for tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), who invites her and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) to his private island. They are joined by Slater’s friends and business partners, who have invited their own female guests. The women arrive to find their rooms stocked with gorgeous clothing, fancy gifts, and an elegant perfume called Desideria, made from a flower native to the island. The women enjoy endless champagne, spectacular culinary experiences, and a concoction of hallucinogenic drugs every night. Everything seems rosy, until it’s not. After Jess is bitten by a snake during one of their drug-fuelled parties, she expresses to Frida that she wants to leave the island. The next day Frida is persuaded to drink snake venom by the maid, and suddenly realises that Jess is missing. She further learns that the flower Desideria, which has been inside of their food, recreational drugs, and perfume, is capable of erasing memories. After drinking more of the venom, she begins to recall the horrors that she has endured whilst being on the island. Flashbacks to horrific scenes of the men sexually assaulting the women follow, which the women have been forced to forget, so that the men can continue their atrocities every night.

The real-life story of Gisèle Pélicot is equally disturbing. For over a decade, her husband Dominique Pélicot invited strangers to their home to rape her, contacting men via an online chatroom called “without her knowing.” Dominique Pélicot is accused of spiking his wife’s evening meal or wine with sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication and soliciting men to rape her whilst she was unconscious. Gisèle Pélicot told the court that she had experienced significant memory lapses, weight loss, and hair loss, fearing that she might be developing Alzheimer’s or a brain tumour. She was unaware of the sexual abuse until police investigated her husband for upskirting, which led to them finding 20,000 photographs and video footage of men sexually assaulting her in an incapacitated state. These were discovered on a USB drive labelled “abuses.” Investigators have counted about 200 instances of rape, more than 90 of which were carried out by strangers and the rest by her husband. 50 of the 72 suspects besides her husband have been identified and are currently on trial.

Despite the nuances between Blink Twice and the Gisèle Pélicot case, the women are victims of the same sexual violence, which is scarily premeditated, targeted, and deceitful. Although Frida is awake as she is raped, the flower forces her to forget her trauma. The only evidence for the sexual assault is bruises, scratches, and dirt trapped under fingernails. We discover that Frida got the scar on her face during her last visit to the island when she resisted Slater. He has invited Frida to the island on multiple occasions; this isn’t a random act of violence. Gisèle Pélicot was unconscious during the sexual assaults, and the cocktail of drugs she was spiked with erased her memory of the heinous abuse she endured.

The assaults of Frida and Gisèle Pélicot are both characterised by gang rape and are both recorded by its perpetrators. In Blink Twice, Slater’s friend Vic is constantly taking polaroid photos of the guests on the island. Frida finds a photo of herself from a previous visit to the island, and photos of other women and men, revealing that Slater is inviting guests to rape people regularly. Whilst the photographic evidence of Gisèle Pélicot’s sexual assaults is more explicit than in Blink Twice, they both expose the perpetrators and provide clarity to the victims.

Although Frida is a fictional character, she could so easily be based upon the thousands of people who are spiked every year. The 2022 Global Drug Survey found that 14% of participants who had had their drink spiked also declared being a victim of a sexual assault during the spiking incident. In almost a quarter of spiking cases reported, victims believed that the perpetrator was someone they knew. Spiking is often perceived as a random, yet calculated attack, carried out by a stranger in a bar or club setting, where victims are more vulnerable. But the spiking method that is carried out against the women in Blink Twice and Gisèle Pélicot is discreet, cunning, and abuses a relationship built on trust. It does not occur when these women are in a vulnerable position, rather it is integrated into their daily lives. Gisèle trusted her husband, the man she had been married to for 50 years and shared three children with. Although Frida does not know Slater personally, she thinks she knows him because of his celebrity status, which he plays to his advantage to persuade her to come to his private island. In an interview with Film Independent, Zoë Kravitz said that she wanted to “weaponise his (Tatum’s) charisma” for the film because Slater King “had to be someone that we felt safe with.” Blink Twice also draws on class differences to reinforce the power balance between the characters; Frida is a cocktail waitress, struggling to get by, whereas Slater is a billionaire tech tycoon. His wealth is appealing to Frida, who even declares that she needs a holiday at the start of the film. This spontaneous, all-expenses-paid trip is presented to Frida exactly when she asks for it. Who would say no in her position?

The ending of Blink Twice is a disturbing, yet oddly satisfying, twist. After escaping from the island, Frida has married Slater and taken over his company as CEO. Slater appears to be in a stupor, drugged with the flower in his vape liquid. Rather than leaving Slater to die in the fire, absolving him of all responsibility, or saving him and reporting him to the police, who may not believe her story, as is the case with many sexual assaults, Frida sees an opportunity to change her life. Zoë Kravitz describes it as “a very complex ending” with “a lot of open-ended questions: is she ending a cycle? Is she continuing a cycle? Yes, did she win, but at what cost?” The cost is that Slater and his friends are not held to account. Frida must lead a life of pretence as Slater’s wife, as she tries to forget her traumatic experience with her perpetrator by her side.

The end of Gisèle Pélicot’s story has not yet been written, but her perpetrators are facing up to 20 years in prison. Although Gisèle Pélicot cannot remember the horrific crimes committed against her, she will never forget the photographs and video footage she was shown. Gisèle Pélicot’s decision to make the trial public is one of sheer courage and seeks to alert the public to DFSA. “So, when other women, if they wake up with no memory, they might remember the testimony of Ms. Pélicot,” she told the court. “No woman should suffer from being drugged and victimised.”

Although Frida and Gisèle Pélicot respond to their trauma differently, their stories both entail uncovering a memory that was taken away from them without their consent. Whilst they are provided with answers, the lives they had known are shattered when they learn the truth. In Blink Twice, Slater King inflicts the trauma he experienced being sexually assaulted as a child on Frida. But unlike Frida, he still has control over his conscious. DFSA is so heinous because it forces the victim to forget; they no longer have their own perspective of the assault. These two stories subvert what it means to be a victim, whilst highlighting that DFSA isn’t always carried out by a stranger, but someone we trust or admire. Although the story of Blink Twice may seem unrealistic, the trial of Dominique Pélicot proves that DFSA is a frightening reality in today’s world. The parallel between these two stories shows that art truly does imitate life.