‘Blink’ movie review: Srinidhi Bengaluru makes a solid debut with a gripping time-travel drama

Dheekshith Shetty in ‘Blink’.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Blink begins with the audio of eminent Kannada writer P Lankesh talking about the beauty and challenges of writing in an interview with All India Radio. Lankesh is an inspiration to thousands of writers from Karnataka. In a long time, no Kannada film has begun with a tribute to writing, one of the crucial elements of a quality film.

Writing is indeed the biggest strength of Blink, but more on that later. Except for the performers, the film is led by a rookie team, with debutant Srinidhi Bengaluru being the director. Many films without solid financial backing and inexperienced artistes look tacky on the technical front; Blink is anything but that. The film moves seamlessly thanks to the perfect fusion of editing, cinematography, and music.

Running across multiple timelines, Blink has Dheekshith Shetty playing Apoorva, a youngster yet to find his footing in his career. He depends on his girlfriend Swapna (Mandara Battalahalli) for money. They are part of a theatre group gearing up for a production. 

Talking about theatre, Shakespeare becomes the reason for the film’s biggest twist! But the film throws its first surprise when Apoorva sees an old man following him. Soon, he comes across a person who looks exactly like him. Apoorva has a unique ability to control his blinking, and that becomes a major tool for him to learn about his past.

Once the time-travel concept kicks in, Blink becomes a gripping thriller as director Srinidhi Bengaluru lays out the traditional framework of the genre without hiccups. People keep going back and forth in time. With each time-travel, the film offers juicy twists. The film explains its turn of events without going to the extent of spoon-feeding.

The film’s writing is a lesson on the impact of subtlety in cinema. Blink pays a gentle yet authentic tribute to Kannada writers, movies, and culture through songs, images, and casual mentions. The dialogues sound real while no scene is longer than required, yet again emphasising the beauty of meticulous writing. 

Dheekshith Shetty brilliantly sells the frustration of a man facing an uncertain future. Gopalakrishna Deshpande, Chaithra J Achar, Suresh Anagalli, and Vajdradheer Jain are pitch-perfect in their respective roles. The complexity in the screenplay is inevitable, given the film’s concept. For people merely looking for straightforward entertainment, it could be hard to process new details at major turning points in the movie.

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As the film neared its end, perhaps exhausted by the number of revelations, someone asked in the movie hall, “Are we also in the loop?”. Blink is a genre-specific movie that needs strong attention and undisturbed investment to enjoy its results. And as we think of the film later, many things do make sense.

Blink is currently running in theatres.