‘Islands’ review: Sam Riley, Stacy Martin scorch in Canary Islands suspense

Dir. Jan-Ole Gerster. Germany. 2025. 123mins

Germany’s Jan-Ole Gerster bleaches his noir to the bone in Islands, a knotty Hitchcock-tinged drama set in in a parched Fuerteventura. The lid is barely clamped down on the always-sunny volcanic Canary Island, as a locally-based tennis pro played by Sam Riley becomes entangled in the unhappy lives of a visiting British family. Suppressed emotions bubble up like the swell of the sea, but Gerster’s (A Coffee In Berlin) destination is not at all obvious – and more enjoyable for that.

Knotty Hitchcock-tinged drama

A over-long running time and a modest cast throw up some commercial challenges, admittedly, but word of mouth should be decent after Islands’ world premiere as a Berlinale Special Gala. It’s a modest, modern mystery worthy of a PD James bookcover. Yet all is not as it seems, which is a constant tease in this nicely-arranged production. Riley’s vacant, hollow, desiccated sun lizard is a perfect fit for the Control actor, while Stacy Martin reels off notes of icy Hitchcock blonde in a film that isn’t easily categorised. (Apart from anything else, is it Spanish? British? It turns out this is an entirely German film.)  

Gerster sets out his stall in the wide-screen early-morning light as he opens on Tom, passed out on the white beach against the blue sky. It’s a great welcome-to-the-show, as Tom staggers off to reclaim his Jeep and start yet another perfect day in Paradise as the tennis pro at a local hotel. Fuerteventura, or ‘Fuerte’, looks a little like a desert – it even has a camel who will play a key role – and the hotel is silhouetted like a shipwreck within it. 

‘Wasted Brits’ set to work wining and dining on their all-inclusive deals, while Dascha Dauenhaur’s excellent score kicks in to remind us of Almodovar’s The Skin I Live in, shot next door in the similarly volcanic Lanzarote — but we’re not quite in the same noir space, despite appearances. Islands is more interested in playing millennial games with people’s lives and expectations: what’s it all about for these drifty pleasure-seekers of today?

For Tom, it’s night after night of sliding into mindless partying: he gulps whisky from the tennisball canister greedily, as if it would quench the parched routine he is beached in. Every day is the same: wake up wherever he passed out, hit some balls, get drunk, have sex with tourists. ‘Permanent sun, and permanent freedom from the whole shit show.’ 

We hear Tom once had a serve to rival Nadal’s, but a bad shoulder has led to an aimless life on Fuerte where the tourists come and go, and the locals have a friendly solidarity. Tom is a Spanish-speaking Brit, well-enough integrated into a society blighted by transience. His best friends, Moroccans who run a camel shelter, are about to leave the island and go home. One of the beasts senses tremors from the volcanically-active Lanzarate – but by now, we’re all feeling the shakes.

The Maguire family has arrived for a down-and-dirty getaway in this resort with its 24-hour buffet set next to the parking lot (they normally prefer to rent a villa). They clearly have aspirations above their status, and their marriage isn’t happy. Anne (Martin) is a beauty with a party past, and Tom can’t quite shake the idea he’s seen her before. Husband Dave (Jack Farthing) is an impulsive fool who wants private tennis lessons for his young son Anton (Dylan Torrell).

Why is Tom attracted to these people, finding space in his schedule, for Anton, upgrading their hotel room and taking them on a private tour of the island? The needs he quenches with booze and drugs open up, and he drifts into some sort of flirtation with Anne while Dave is engaging in uneasy oneupmanship. Drinks in a nightclub with Dave set the plot in motion and it turns out the camel was right: there’s a storm a-coming. Gerster is happy to turn it all on its head, though, scattering red herrings all across the island’s sandy beaches once Dave doesn’t return home.

Berlin resident Riley, who hasn’t quite found the sweet spot in cinema since Control, gives Tom some shape around the character’s yawning inner void. And the Martin/Farthing marriage is weirdly watchable in its dynamic. Gerster hits a few too many balls for a little too long, but Islands owns its own court. Locations are uncannily well-used to reinforce how people run but can’t really hide - from themselves.