Islands

German director Jan-Ole Gerster’s (A Coffee in Berlin) English-language debut is set on Fuerteventura. Like any Spanish island, it is a vacation hot spot, not only for his compatriots but also for the British, allowing for a meeting on equal footing in this noir-inflected psychological thriller.

A spiritual sibling to Challengers’s Patrick Zweig, Tom (Sam Riley) works as a tennis coach in an all-inclusive resort, often waking in various places to hazy memories of the previous night and whom he spent it with. These days bleed into one another, until he is propositioned by a mysterious blonde (Stacy Martin), requesting tennis lessons for her son. In the midst of Tom’s unexpected entanglement with the family, her husband (Jack Farthing) goes missing.

What starts off with a character study of Gerster’s typical protagonist of choice: someone who is a drifter – or dare one say tourist? –  in his own life, evolves to a disorientating suspense story, falling somewhere between Hitchcock and Highsmith. While the sun dazzles with deceptive indifference, the volcano on neighbouring Lanzarote perennially looms on the verge of eruption, creating a chokehold of anticipation. The feature playfully teases at femme fatale and antihero archetypes and their alluring moral ambiguity, but never gives the audience sufficient insight into its characters’s motivations to pin them down in either way. Every man (and woman) is an island.

One could not have dreamed of a more fitting characteristic for Tom than Riley’s distinctive gravelly voice. It constantly leaves viewers questioning his state of inebriation, or degree of hangover. The English actor, who now lives in Berlin and has won locals over with his German-speaking performance in John Cranko, now also stuns in Spanish, when his character acts as an interpreter between the British family and the local police.

A dazzling and salient highlight of the 75^th edition of the Berlinale, Islands would have easily deserved a spot in the festival’s Competition. Nevertheless, Gerster has proven himself yet again as one of the most exciting filmmakers currently working in – and now even outside – of Germany.

Selina Sondermann

Islands does not have a release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.