ISLANDS
- Kathleen Bondar
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
DIRECTED BY JAN-OLE GERSTER
STARRING SAM RILEY, STACY MARTIN, JACK FARTHING, DYLAN TORRELL
123 MINUTES | GERMANY | ENGLISH
UK CINEMAS 12 SEPTEMBER 2025
What is it like to choose to live on a sunny island where everyone goes on holiday? Is it really a lucky life of endless sun and play? This was a question which occupied director and writer, Jan-Ole Gerster, and became the catalyst for his latest film Islands starring Sam Riley.
“I came up with the story about 10 years ago when I went to Fuerteventura for the first time. I got intrigued by a tennis coach that I took lessons with. And this person was very obsessed with not only convincing everyone around him but convincing himself that he doesn't regret a single day of his decision to come here and live this life. And the more he repeated it, the more desperate he seemed for everyone to believe him.”
Sam Riley plays Tom, living an outwardly easy life. Nicknamed “Ace”, the locals high five their island’s tennis legend who once gave Nadal a run for his money in a friendly. And yet Tom is disconnected and lonely, no matter how many hook ups or parties the location offers. His daily life - tennis lessons for hotel tourists – is repetitive and aimless. He manages but it’s unfulfilling.
Gerster references an eclectic list of artistic influences for his film, from the 16th century poet John Donne (“no man is an island”), to Anton Chekhov’s stage characters searching for (but never realising) a better life elsewhere, to Edward Hopper’s paintings of lonely, disconnected New Yorkers hunched over bars and staring into the distance. Tom embodies this state of pointlessness.
Then an intriguing, dysfunctional couple arrive, with their young, son and, in the traditional cinematic format, the status quo (for Tom) is disrupted.
Stacy Martin plays Anne, a wispy, stylish wife who manages her frustrated husband’s dissatisfaction with resignation and attends to her pleasant natured little boy who is a natural with the tennis racquet rather like Tom. Jack Farthing plays Dave, who’s had enough of failing his own and others’ expectations. He wrestles with an infertility problem which raises questions about his paternity. Anne and Dave superbly encapsulate that familiar, well-heeled, wretched couple, intricately attached but unhappy in their relationship.
All is not what it seems, not for Tom the “Ace” or the perfectly turned-out marrieds. When Dave goes missing after a reckless night out, Islands moves into something more film noir. Tom bewitched by Anne, whom (it is intonated) he may have known previously in their hey days, is swept into a missing persons investigation.
The setting is poignant for the film. Although generic and unnamed, it is largely shot in Fuerteventura with other desert locations sourced to underline the emptiness of island life for someone like Tom. Hot, desultory island living is a metaphor for Tom’s ennui. A soulless tourist culture pervades the island; and the desert, the wild Atlantic seas and the scorching sun can, of course, harbour danger.
Fortunately, Islands resists the temptation to spiral into a whodunnit. It offers a deeper dive into character, giving the viewer a chance to observe, question and empathise with the characters.
Gerster raves about his cast and so he should.
“I was incredibly fortunate, because they brought so many nuances to the characters that I never could have thought of, let alone instructed them to enact. So multilayered.”
Gerster’s thoughtful, absorbing film is wonderfully nuanced and multilayered too.
