Compelling ‘Islands’ serves up plethora of thrills
If you’re up for a thick slice of escapist neo-noir, make “Islands” your next destination. The weather is lovely, the sand and water glisten and beautiful people abound. The perfect place to get away from it all. Well, that is, unless you’re a permanent resident, like Tom, the somber, sad-eyed tennis coach available six days per week to assist guests in improving their volleys and serves.
Love for him is just a score, a series of one-night stands with his array of young, beautiful pupils looking for a wild, no-strings tryst before returning home to their rote existences. He, and they, are the titular “islands,” dots in the sea that appear close from a distance but remain forever disconnected. For the most part, that’s just the way the tourists like it. But what about Tom? Where does he go to get away when his life is already a non-stop paradise?
That’s the question director Jan-Ole Gerster and his two co-writers seductively explore in a film that intriguingly dips a toe into the turbulent waters surrounding Tom’s isolated existence, in which alcohol and loneliness are his constant companions. Gerster wastes no time establishing his use of metaphor, with a breathtaking opening scene in which Tom (superbly sketched by Sam Riley) wakes up alone in what at first appears to be an expansive desert. But as the camera pans, in the distance, we spot an oasis of sorts, a monolithic resort, the only sign of civilization on the horizon.
It is there that the expat Brit plies his trade from 9 to 5 under a sweltering sun that’s left his hair bleached and his skin almost as burnt out as his soul. Yes, he’s sexy, in a beach-bum sort of manner, but he’s also a bit dead inside, longing for change but at a loss for how to make it happen. Then, “she” walks up. That would be Anne Maguire, a sleek but icy wife and mother, played with an elegant aloofness by “The Brutalist’s” Stacy Martin. She is the epitome of the Hitchcock blonde, signaling danger at every glance.
I couldn’t help being reminded of that great line from “Body Heat,” in which Kathleen Turner purrs to a smitten William Hurt that: “You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.” There’s also a lot of Lana Turner from “The Postman Always Rings Twice” in Martin’s flawless performance, always playing coy but clearly with an agenda. Like Tom, you’re fascinated by the air of mystery shrouding her Anne, whose come to the Canary Islands with her rotter husband, Dave (Jack Farthing), and their adventurous 7-year-old son, Anton (Dylan Torrell, a real find).
Anne asks Tom if he’d be willing to heighten the child’s tennis game. He’s fully booked, but there’s something familiar about Anne that he finds so irresistible that he agrees to squeeze Anton in. And it won’t be the last time he jettisons “no” from his vocabulary when it’s Anne posing the questions. You’re left to wonder why his reaction to her is so different from all the other women who’ve come on to him. Might she be one of those many anonymous flings he’s long ago forgotten? And might Anton, a budding tennis prodigy, be his son?
True or not, Tom is more than willing to fantasize that it’s an infinite possibility, which explains why he puts everything on hold to spend night and day with the Maguires, showing them the sights on Fuerteventura, arranging a camel ride for Anton, besieging the desk clerk, Maria (Bruna Cusi), to upgrade the family’s accommodations. All the time, you keep asking yourself, “Is Tom being played?”
You’re hooked and willing to follow the story wherever Gerster and his co-writers want to take us. Even more so after Dave suddenly goes missing and a highly suspicious inspector (Ramiro Blas) gets the notion that a missing person case could well be a murder. It’s around this time that Martin and Riley (so great as rock star Ian Curtis in “Control”) go all in on effectively filling your brain with all sorts of lurid scenarios.
It’s all heading, of course, toward the proverbial “big twist.” But it’s not at all what you’re expecting. In fact, no doubt many will be disappointed. I’m one of them. Then, it hit me that “Islands” wasn’t at all what I expected. It was better. I wish I could tell you why, but I want to avoid spoilers. I would say it’s best to approach “Islands” as an astute study of four people longing to flee their current lives. And isn’t that the very reason we take vacations? An escape from the mundane?
It’s very existential, not to mention thought-provoking. But you wish Gerster hadn’t made this a five-setter, which is close to driving your patience to a break point. It did not need to be two-plus hours. You forgive him, though, largely because the central performances are so intoxicating. Although challenged, my interest never waned. But what about you? Should you skip “Islands?” Not atoll.
Movie review
Islands
Rated: Not rated
Cast: Sam Riley, Stacy Martin, Jack Farthing, Dylan Torrell and Pep Ambròs
Director: Jan-Ole Gerster
Writer: Jan-Ole Gerster, Lawrie Doran and Blaz Kutin
Runtime: 121 minutes
Where: In theaters Jan. 30 (limited)
Grade: B
