There is certainly trouble in paradise in Islands, a sun-baked slow burner that gradually descends into neo-noir territory as its characters fall deeper into their respective existential quandaries. The latest work from German filmmaker Jan-Ole Gerster, marking his debut English-language feature, Islands flaunts a cast of arthouse favorites, including Sam Riley, Stacy Martin, and Jack Farthing, whose compelling performances reinforce an intricate central mystery that beguilingly refuses to concede its hiddenmost secrets.

Riley stars as Tom, a one-time tennis professional who relocated some years previously following an injury to the Canary Island of Fuerteventura, where he is now employed as an instructor at the island’s sole resort. Tom’s days pass on a comfortable but unsatisfying loop: he wakes up (in his car, on pool chaises, even facedown in the desert sand), arrives late to his sessions with a terrible hangover and pushes through his shift, then, once the sun goes down, indulges in the island’s touristy party culture through exorbitant drinking, drugs, and womanizing, repeating every step again the next day. During his few hours unoccupied by working or partying, Tom maintains an isolated figure, despite his fellow islanders’ blanketed concern for his increasing loneliness and destructive behavior.

Tom’s eternal ennui is broken one day when a young family arrives at the resort for a “much-needed” vacation. Anne (Martin, transforming her typical dark locks into those of a Hitchcock blonde) asks Tom to teach her son, Anton, tennis; she is even willing to pay double his usual rate. As Tom begins to notice the deep bond between mother and son, the illusion is shattered by the sharp arrival of Dave (Farthing), Anton’s father and Anne’s husband, respectively. Dave’s brash behavior and cringy penchant for selfies set him apart from his wife’s quiet confidence, creating discord between the two that makes Tom (and the audience) question their ultimate compatibility and quickly unveils an underlying tension in their relationship, one that has evidently existed far before their arrival in Fuerteventura.

When Anne hires Tom to be the family’s unofficial tour guide, he shows the trio the island’s most unique regions, delving into the history of its formation, which resulted from a volcanic eruption millennia earlier, just as a volcano on nearby Lanzarote endangers to do the same. Their day spent under Tom’s direction slowly evolves from peaceful to disquieting, with cinematographer Juan C. Sarmiento Grisales deftly balancing both tones while capturing the archaic beauty of the island’s untouched areas through vast landscape shots. A late-night tiff between Anne and Dave pushes the latter to a wild trip to the club with Tom, and the next morning, Dave is nowhere to be found. As the entire island ostensibly begins to search for Dave, Tom steps in to aid Anne in looking after Anton and being as useful in the case as he can, but inaccuracies in Anne’s account of the night her husband went missing soon arise, dragging Tom further into a crisis that churns with unrest like the powerful waves that encircle the jagged isle.

From the outside looking in, Tom lives the ideal bachelor life, bereft of conventional responsibilities and surrounded by beautiful tourists in an even more stunning location. Yet, his withered gaze and aging good looks betray the aimless anguish within, an aura which Riley commits to with the same despair as his career-making performance as Ian Curtis in 2007’s Control. Just as his spiritual well seems to be on the verge of drying up, Anne and her family appear, strangely reinvigorating Tom’s sense of purpose, a puzzle the narrative of Islands explores as intriguing, at times withholding. While Tom’s character trajectory follows an ascending arc (until the rug is pulled out from under him), Anne’s trajectory works almost in inverse: initially portraying her as a composed, dedicated, if not frustrated, mother and wife, before slowly revealing the alluring contradictions that threaten to resurface from her past. Through the increasingly unstable yet fully palpable chemistry formed between these two figures, Islands deftly channels the most twisted romantic cat-and-mouse dynamics at the core of Alfred Hitchcock’s most celebrated works.

Despite the movie’s friendly vacation-town setting, many of its characters feel more solitary than the 1970s-era resort where Islands unfolds, which looks like a giant concrete alien thumb against the mostly uninterrupted natural vistas of Fuerteventura. Just as the ground trembles with the faint threat of nearby volcanic activity, the island’s inhabitants, temporary and permanent alike, grapple with their singular introspective worries, whether stemming from deeper concerns like the ones Tom faces or even more trivial issues like missing the airport shuttle bus. This sense of isolation seeps into Islands’ every frame, further linking its unmoored characters to film noir commendations and the troubled characters who have spawned from the genre since its conception.

Do not let the picturesque beaches and pristine tennis courts of its amazing setting fool you, for Islands works as a bleak and twisty inspection of a man in crisis, frozen by inhibitions that threaten to swallow him whole. Gerster’s taught direction and the intense performances it yields culminate in a film that feels both intellectual and entertaining, one that could be universally appreciated, despite a hasty climax that does not deliver the same satisfaction as the narrative that precedes it. Many believe getaway holidays are solely for fleeing one’s troubles, but as Islands proposes, if your entire life feels like a holiday, where do you find your true escape?

4/5

Germany | 2026 | 121 Minutes | English

‘Islands’ world premiered at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival. The movie begins its theatrical release in the United States on January 30, courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment. Click here for ‘Islands’ showtimes near you.

‘Islands’ Review: Sam Riley Stands Out in a Sun-Baked Neo-Noir

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