Berlinale 2025 Review: ISLANDS, Tennis Pro Finds Himself a Murder Suspect

Dawn in a desert. A body in the sand. Is it a corpse? No, it's Tom, a tennis bum recovering from another night of debauchery. The Canary Islands resort where he gives lessons gleams in the distance. The clever opening to Islands, a good-looking but superficial thriller, promises more than director Jan-Ole Gerster delivers.

By day, Tom staggers through classes and lessons, repeating rote advice and encouragement to kids and their rich parents. Nights are a different kind of stagger: an endless blur of drink, drugs and sex, as generic as the throbbing tribal rhythms he dances to at the Waikiki Club.

A fixture in town, Tom knows the ins and outs of bouncers and cops, booking clerks and tour guides. As played by Sam Riley, Tom is just smart enough to play the sap in a crime-for-hire scheme. Soon enough icy blonde Anne Maguire (Stacy Martin) approaches to ask a favor: give her young son Anton (Dylan Torrell) private lessons.

Unable to resist Anne's glances, Tom finds himself drawn into the Maguire family. Husband Dave (Jack Farthing) is an ineffectual lout, someone "running my father's company into the ground," as Anne puts it. An arrogant know-it-all and sloppy drunk, Dave is resentful and abusive to Anne, who reveals later in the story that he just might be infertile as well.

Director and co-writer Jan-Ole Gerster salts the plot with enough allusions and clues to suggest a Canary Islands Body Heat. Wasting his chances and burning his friends, Tom is on a dead-end path when Anne suddenly gives him a reason to live. He starts to sober up and imagine a life with a family.

After giving the Maguires a tour of the island, Tom reluctantly agrees to take Dave to a nightclub in town. One drink leads to another, until Tom wakes up the next day hungover and oblivious. Dave is missing, his wallet and shoes left on a beach.

Tom's friend Jorge (Pep Ambròs), a local cop, tries to help on what is at first a missing person case. But he's replaced by Mazo (Ramiro Blas), a detective who leans on Columbo mannerisms. As the case develops, it becomes clear that both Anne and Tom are chief suspects in what could be murder.

As a stripped-down noir, Islands makes good use of its island settings and archetypal characters. (Note the uniformly bitter staff, fed up with wealthy jerks.) Riley is especially good as the fall guy, his eyes betraying his fear and desperation. Martin, seen last year in The Brutalist, gives little away in her performance. It's a choice which suits her role, but Farthing never progresses beyond annoying.

Gerster has higher ambitions than a sleazy thriller, however. He's aiming for a post-modern, deconstructed noir, the kind that lets plotting and characterizations slip away like sand through fingers. By the end of Islands, it's the viewer who's been had, not the usual suspects.

Photo © Juan Sarmiento G. / 2025 augenschein Filmproduktion, LEONINE Studios