“Islands” (2025) appears to be a daytime film noir, but it is all atmosphere and is actually a character study of dissolute, ex pat, former tennis pro instructor at a resort on Fuerteventura, Tom (Sam Riley). He disrupts his routine to hang out with a family of three, his pupil, Anton (Dylan Torrell), and parents, Anne (Stacy Martin) and Dave (Jack Farthing). When Dave disappears, Tom decides to help Anne navigate and evade the bureaucracy. He begins to want something different from life after taking over Dave’s role temporarily. What will he do once the mystery is solved? Did German director and cowriter have to take two hours and one minute to make his point? No, and it hurts his film because of it.
Riley has a memorable, gravelly voice, but his skin doctor is somewhere rocking themselves like a fetus. At least he tans and does not look like a boiled lobster. He teaches on the court all day in the blazing sun, parties all night and wakes up hung over. He likes to accommodate guests and regularly goes above and beyond, but he is just going through the motions, not really connecting with anything or anyone. The locals like him because he treats them like people and with courtesy. In some resorts, locals get treated as if they are unwanted vagrants. He does connect with one couple, Raik (Ahmed Boulane) and Amina (Fatima Adoum), who own a camel farm, and relates to a camel that enjoys running away. Allegedly the camel can pick up on the seismic shifts of a nearby volcano, which agitates him, like Tom who leaps at smoothing over others’ problems more than thinking about what he wants. A shot of glassware shaking proves that it is not just talk. The danger is real. It just is not explosive. Kind of like “Islands.”
Martin does a good job, but perhaps the performance is too dry and understated for my tastes. I found myself yearning for Blake Lively, but Lively’s roles are not this kind of character. Ann is supposed to be more ambiguous to add tension regarding whether she is just a mother and wife or a femme fatale trying to get rid of her husband. The most damning bit of evidence is her proclivity to go topless whenever she is near a coastline, but hey, Europeans. It is her version of flirting. If it was a James Bond movie, he would at least quip something naughty about always remembering a great pair of insert innocuous object that is actually an euphemism for breasts. For the prurient, you only get side boob.
Farthing plays his role with relish, and while watching, I could not place him, but later, I did some digging. He was good in “Electra” (2024). Dad likes his kid in an absent-minded way, but his cell phone is more absorbing than the tennis lesson that he wanted him to take. He envies Tom’s life, and all accounts of his off-screen behavior indicates less joie de vivre than he exhibited for most of his appearances in “Islands.” When he goes missing, the movie is poorer for it. The man is annoying, but he keeps things moving.
Tom’s most interesting relationship is with Anton. He responds to the child’s promise as a tennis player. Dave even mimics how Tom treats his child. Tom seems eager to redirect Dave’s attention on Anton. Tom alternates between relating to Anton as a vision of his younger self or fancying himself as a father figure to Anton. Unfortunately, once Dave gets dumped so does Anton in the narrative with Gerster favoring the sexier pairing than the more complex one, which is unfortunate because the dynamic offers more insight into Tom’s inner world and largely unspoken past.
It is interesting that Tom is only in danger when he starts to behave like a family man, not a partier. He starts missing obligations, puts himself in danger and begins fantasizing about taking Dave’s place. When he rents a room at the hotel, it is as if he is reclaiming his birthright, which means losing his worker solidarity and pressing his luck with the locals, local cop, Jorge (Pep Ambròs), and hotel receptionist, Maria (Bruna Cusi). Ramiro Blas makes an impression as the head of the investigation. It would be great to watch Blas somehow go head-to-head with J. K. Simmons like the Highlander version of character actors battling for a role. His intensity carries the audience through the movie somewhat.
The problem with the story is that Tom is underwritten, and despite Riley’s best efforts to fill in the gaps and be present for the entire duration, there is nothing there other than a good tennis player who decided to stop competing and leave home. He vaguely wants things, self-medicates and has the capacity to care, but it is enough momentum. I found myself spinning possible trite storylines that Gerster thickly implies, but it goes nowhere. Even if they are true, they do not matter, not really.
“Islands” is about Tom waking up to the fact that he is just a temporary supporting character in other people’s lives, easily discarded after holiday. Does he want to keep living in oblivion or choose a real life? The story ends on an ambiguous note, which would be aggravating for moviegoers invested in Tom’s life, but there is no danger of that happening. While it may be the point that Tom has rendered himself ephemeral, it also makes the movie hard to get into even if it is well acted and beautifully shot.
“Islands” feels like the anti- “Sirat” (2025) with Tom fleeing the natural world, which is more desolate and treacherous than the artificialness of the resort which sustains life, a fake water filed and lush environment. He is in purgatory, the living dead. Moviegoers and characters cannot live by beauty alone. A movie like “Anora” (2024) seems more impressive in retrospect compared to “Islands.” Gerster hopes that all the gorgeous meandering will be a sufficient substitute to buy time until this character has an epiphany about his place in the world. It is also opening at the same time as “A Private Life” (2025), another movie where a character must reevaluate their life and use a mystery about someone else’s life as the catalyst to change their own. Frankly if you only have time for one movie, choose “A Private Life” over “Islands.”
I’m tired of character studies punking out and hiding behind a more exciting genre just to suck it dry. It is not even as if it is hiding behind a franchise. It is already an art house film. There is nothing wrong with just playing it straight, especially if the film is already leaning towards the boring side. “Magellan” (2025) is an example of slow cinema, but with a sense of purpose. Gerster has something to say about commercial colonialism and how it affects even people who can exit the role of exploited tourism worker and become the exploitee, but “Islands” is meh because it is so ordinary even with Tom’s gifts. It is not exactly a revelation that being an empty vessel can feel empty.
“Islands” is well acted and well shot but probably won’t be well attended after word-of-mouth spreads about the trajectory of this story. There is an audience for this kind of story, but the gimmick will attract the wrong one. It is not bad, but it is not good. It is a break-even movie in a world rich with content demanding attention. It is a tease of a film that keeps raising the stakes just to drop the ball. Even if it is the point, is it a point that is worthy spending time and money on for an audience short on both? No. Visually it deserves the big screen treatment. Narrative-wise, it is a matinee or wait until it streams. If you can relate to any of the characters, the lemon will be worth the squeeze.
