NateWatchesCoolMovies
The thriller genre loves it's blind girls. Particularly ones who are being stalked by some kind of malevolent force, be it supernatural force or simple home invader. From The Eye, Blind Fear and more, it's a classic setup with not always classy results. 1994's Blink, however, is so mature in its setup of the premise that when the thriller elements come along, they almost seem out of place. Almost. Madeleine Stowe brings her doe eyed resilience to the role of Emma Brody, a musician who has been blind since she was a very little girl, following a sickening incident with her mother. She is undergoing a radical transplant to restore her vision, which will give her the corneas of a deceased person. Stowe handles the early scenes of seeing for the first time in decades phenomenally, really urging the audience to experience it alongside her. There's just one problem with this little operation: the eyes she receives belonged to someone who either witnessed a murder, or was crazy, because soon she is seeing threatening figures following her, and violent acts she isn't sure are even real or not. The film refuses to be an outright thriller and won't touch any horror tropes with a ten foot pole, rooted in the notion that it's a drama that some scary elements have just happened to wander through on their way to a cheaper, more exploitative piece. Stowe is never the helpless waif, showing strong intuition and the will to persevere. She is assisted by rowdy, jaded police detective John Hallstrom (Aiden Quinn) whom develops romantic feelings for her, his brash tactics initially crashing and burning in the face of her fiercely independent nature. James Remar gives a nice understated turn as his partner, Detective Ridgely. It's nice grounded work from all, in a film that plays it dead straight, despite its spooky subject matter. Definitely the one to go for in the sub genre.
Robert J. Maxwell
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.
