There’s a man face down in the sand, unmoving. Nothing but vast golden sand dunes and endless blue sky surrounds him. Then, his body twitches awake. This is the raspy and rugged Tom (Sam Riley), who regularly wakes up hungover on the beach or by the pool or in his car with no recollection of how he got there. This jarring opening to German director Jan-Olé Gerster’s first English-language film sets the stage for one man’s wandering descent into a shrouded mystery that shifts between thrilling and sluggish.
Combining Hitchcockian thrills with a seductive European sensibility, Islands is a slow-burner set in an all-inclusive Canary Islands resort. Tom, a professional tennis player-turnedcoach, spends his days pelting balls at holidaymakers. He has resigned himself to a self-destructive cycle of drinking and one-night stands. Then a peculiar British couple, Anne (Stacy Martin) and Dave (Jack Farthing), arrive seeking one-on-one tennis lessons for their young son Anton (Dylan Torrell). He has an instant connection with the family and finds himself with renewed vigour as he shows them his favourite dinner spot and takes them out for drinks. However, the next morning, Dave is nowhere to be found, Anne is blasé, and Tom becomes entangled in a claustrophobic police investigation.
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Delightfully, Islands doesn’t patronise viewers. The film refuses to confirm or deny suspicions. It’s an exhilarating feast from co-writers Gerster, Blaž Kutin and Lawrie Doran who pen this winding tale with sharp subtlety. There are fleeting nods in Gerster’s frame, like Anne’s hand trailing down Tom’s back and him nervously massaging sunscreen onto her back. While Tom is accustomed to tennis rallies, the back-and-forth with Anne reaches a new level of intensity. Seduction crackles under the overhead sun as local investigators take note of their cosiness. Dascha Dauenhauer’s hauntingly sinister soundtrack underscores the growing sense of dread that accompanies Anne’s bizarrely erratic actions and Tom’s swelling anxiety. This layered role of engrossing interiority provides plenty for Riley to dig into, with Martin’s hypnotic performance giving him a chance to showcase his impressive backhand.
It’s a shame, then, that this tantalising thriller fumbles its pacing and could have done with a sharper pass in the editing room. The second act overstays its welcome, like a long summer day that plods by. Though cinematographer Juan Sarmiento G’s camera observes the gorgeous coastal surroundings like a lucid dream that no one can wake up from, the dawdling plot stalls all the bristling tension that has been built.
‘No man is an island,’ the saying goes, but Tom certainly felt alone in deep waters until Anne’s family arrived on his shores. When driving his new British friends around the island, Tom points out a smoking volcano on nearby Lanzarote. “Is it going to erupt?” Dave asks. “You never know,” Tom replies. Gerster’s ominous portrait of a man and his isolation serves as a reminder that burying one’s head in the sand will ultimately lead to self-implosion.