Watch Blink For Free

That was an excellent one.

Better Late Then Never

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Blink is directed by Michael Apted and written by Dana Stevens. It stars Madeleine Stowe, Aidan Quinn, James Remar, Paul Dillon, Peter Friedman, Bruce A. Young and Laurie Metcalfe. Music is by Brad Fiedel and cinematography by Dante Spinotti. Story sees Stowe as Emma Brody, who after being blind for 20 years receives a double cornea transplant that mostly restores her sight. However, she's subject to something known as "retroactive vision" which means that what her blurry vision at first sees doesn't register to the brain sometime later. A problem, now, because there has been a murder committed upstairs at her apartment complex and she's the only "eye" witness to the murderer.It's all set up to be a standard woman in peril thriller, the kind that drops into the cinema on a yearly basis. But thanks to some technical smarts and a terrific performance by Stowe, Blink is one of the better films from this particular sub-genre. It's a bit saggy in the middle, where, probably thanks to the success of Basic Instint and Sea of Love in the five years previously, Apted and co try to turn it into an "erotic" thriller as Stowe and Quinn's surly copper form a relationship, but it's genuinely tense and the novelty of Emma's unusual affliction never wears thin.Apted and his team have devised a unique visual effect that lets us see the world through Emma's unusual eyes, and the result is very unsettling. Blurry focus blends with wobbly vision and this allows for scary moments that stretch the concept across the films running time. It's of course a hokey premise, and the formula at the core of the plot is nothing new, but the character of Emma, coupled with her "affliction" is. Emma is no poor victim looking for sympathy, she's spunky, sexy and not suffering fools gladly. She lives as an independent, plays fiddle in a Celtic rock band (The Drovers playing themselves) and is full of feminine whiles. Stowe really gets to grips with the character and convinces fully. Quinn is OK, plays sarcastic and moody with ease, while Apted has a keen eye for the Chicago locale and Spinotti's photography is gorgeous in colour tones.It needed a better, more frantic, ending, and that over played mid-section stops it from being from the top draw of thrillers, but otherwise it's well worth a look for potential first time viewers. 7/10

The main reason I saw this film was not because I thought the plot sounded interesting, or even because of the fact that it stars the beautiful Madeleine Stowe; the reason I saw it is purely down to the fact that I remembered seeing posters for it in the video store when I was a kid. With such a nonchalant viewing reason behind me, it probably wont come as a surprise that I wasn't expecting a lot from this film; and it's a good job as Blink is a highly disappointing thriller with numerous problems and very little to recommend it for. The plot is not particularly original, and focuses on the idea of a blind woman in peril. There is a slight twist on this theme; as the woman in this film is not quite blind; in fact, she is the benefactor of a breakthrough 'eye transplant', which re-enables her sight after over twenty years of being blind. A side effect of this treatment is the fact that she sees some things 'by memory', and this is a problem when she apparently witnesses a murder as she's not sure if it's real or just flashback...The film would be described a 'psychological thriller', and the reason why these films are often hit and miss is the main problem with this one. A film like this really needs a central character that is easy to get into; and while I believe that Madeleine Stowe is a great actress, she's not given the room to do much with this role. The plotting is not good at all, and is often all over the place; and too much of the film focuses on the tentative (and boring) relationship between the central character and a policeman on the case. This relationship feels extremely phoney, and since it makes up a large proportion of the running time of the film; it becomes a pretty big problem. There are a few decent scenes; Stowe is very good despite the poor material, though I would have preferred a lot more suspense, given that this is really supposed to be a thriller. The ending is pulled off fairly nicely, though its impact is lessened by the tepid film that preceded it. For a far better take on a similar theme, see the fantastic 'Wait Until Dark', and skip this.

Before it nearly strangles on the limitations of the genre, `Blink' provides suspense, sensuality, music and some marvelous character studies. Madelaine Stowe plays a fiddler, blind since childhood maternal abuse, who partially regains her sight, only to become the only one who can identify a serial killer. Stowe is terrific in the part. Course, sexually predatory and foul mouthed, she is NOT the vulnerable, tender `Audrey Hepburn / Mia Farrow' victim we normally see in this kind of movie. Stowe is real, perhaps too much so. Nonetheless, this is an Oscar-caliber performance. Aiden Quinn nearly matches Stowe as the conceited, callous police detective who, doesn't so much as `gets in touch with his feelings' than he acquires them as the story unfolds. This makes for an interesting character study; but, by film's climax, we're worried more about him than Stowe. WARNING: SPOILERS I believe the confrontation between Quinn and Stowe at the station was a mistake, particularly Stowe's level of viciousness and vulgarity. This reduces our empathy for Stowe at the critical climax of the movie. The weird hallucinogenic confrontation on the commuter train doesn't help, either. Better that the killer pursue and attack Quinn for getting too close. AN EXPLANATION FOR ONE PUZZLED VIEWER. The killer had either given the cross to the organ donor or she wore one. You can see this in a picture of her near the end of the film. After murdering a women, he would place a cross on her. He made no attempt to `reharvest' the transplanted organs, except from Stowe. He strangled the women into unconsciousness. Despite the comment earlier in the film, they were probably not dead when he raped them. He then cut their wrists so they would bleed to death, preventing the harvesting of organs. I liked this movie, a lot; though I have to admit I felt a little empty at the end. Pardon the pun, but "Blink" is certainly worth a look.

SPOILERS.Aidan Quinn has always struck me as a nice guy and a competent actor. Handsome in a James Deanish way but without the extravagant thespianism, and not afraid to have himself thoroughly deglamorized when the part calls for it. And that's him in "Blink." He even musters a first-class Chicago accent (not surprising) for a film shot in Chicago. Madeleine Stowe is equally appealing, in part for quite different reasons. She has a low voice that is simultaneously throaty and nasal (all her sinuses seem to be pumping away like a dolphin's) and she has a tendency to break into endearing childish giggles when she is about to undergo a corneal transplant, overjoyed at the prospect of being able to see again. And on top of all that she is a beautiful woman with a slender and very feminine body, the kind of figure you might see in a 19th-century illustration of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale about the little mermaid, only better because Stowe has legs as well as a tail. I also give her bonus points because this is her most vulgar, spunkiest performance on screen.The film doesn't have a lot of action in it. There is not a car chase in sight, nothing explodes, and all the murders but one take place off camera. About five shots are fired all together. But Apted, the director, has organized everything so that it rambles along without a boring moment, except perhaps for the predictable shoot-out at the end. We have a half-blind woman in jeopardy locked up in a big garage with some moron who wants to tear her eyeballs out. "Give me back those eyes that belong to her," he says, or something like that. The situation is straight out of Helpful Hints for Screenwriters -- Part Three, Section Two, Subsection A, sub b, backslash 4. "Put a blind woman in a dark room with a murderer." In fact, the script is the weakest part of the movie. The heavy is another serial killer following a pattern which it takes the cops two hours to figure out. (He's collecting the organs that were harvested from his dead girl friend.) Some of it makes no sense. What's the business with the Byzantine cross? Why does he slash his victim's wrists postmortem so that the blood will drain away and the organ transplants no longer of use? (That is, since nobody bleeds after death anyway.) And -- okay -- I can buy "delayed perception," although I've never heard of it, but after her transplant Stowe begins hallucinating her mother, the killer, her boyfriend, her neighbors, even in their absence. We're only one step away here from the old Helpful Hints for Screenwriters story of the transplanted organs that carry the impulses and sensations of their donors. (Cf., The Hands of Orlac or whatever.) Enough to make me worry about my hair transplants. There is also something about Stowe's wanting to be in control all the time, a desire of which nothing is made in the script, and is only there to provide something for her and Quinn to fight about.But Apted pretty much compensates for these weaknesses through sheer efficiency. He even handles the atmosphere people with notable effectiveness. (When Stowe bursts out of the police station's men's room after a brutal argument with Quinn, we see a knot of cops in the background who have been eavesdropping and they casually break up and stroll away.)There are also themes that explore the sensory apparatus of the human body. Actually, it's quite a sensuous film. The chief theme of course is Stowe's vision, and she's the actress for the part because her eyes are slightly crossed. We get some idea of her vision from time to time through a distorting lens and some morphing, but it's a technique that's only used when it's called for. There are no visual fireworks other than that. None of the shots calls attention to itself, as in, "Look, Ma, I'm a Director!" It's a tactile movie too. There are two or three love scenes between Quinn and Stowe and they're pretty rambunctious. Lamps get knocked over and all that, and she feels faces and hands, while Quinn feels her. Pretty sexy actually, but not at all titillating. Stowe has said she always made love with her eyes closed while she was blind, and fantasized a good deal, and in one such session Quinn asks her to open her eyes and look at him. It's a rather tender moment. The chemical senses are represented only by smell, taste being neglected. There are lots of flowers in this movie. When Quinn visits the home of victim number three, the husband had just brought his wife a large bouquet, and Quinn is holding another bunch of flowers. In one scene, Stowe tiptoes nude up to a vase full of roses that Quinn has given her and she sniffs one rapturously. And then there is the surgical soap. As for the kinetic senses, there are several sports scenes -- basketball (two) and baseball (1), in addition to the rather strenuous lovemaking. The auditory sense is centered around music. Stowe plays the violin. Quinn brings her CDs of The Drovers, the Irish band she plays with, of Vivaldi, and of Pearl Jam. "Eclectic," remarks Stowe. "I was drunk," replies Quinn.This is worth watching if it happens along on cable. It's even worth renting.