Sun-Drenched ‘Islands’ Subverts Film Noir Conventions To Explore Desolation and Destiny

A familiar irony among longtime residents of any popular seaside town or coastal area is that they almost never spend much time at the beach. Tom, the English protagonist of the sly new film “Islands,” substantiates this curious phenomenon when he visits his local beach on Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, with a family of tourists and mentions that he hadn’t been to it in several years. Sleepwalking through life, the middle-aged-but-still-fit tennis instructor has become immune to the great beauty around him through the daily grind of his job and his many years spent on the island. Director Jan-Ole Gerster shows us Tom’s routine early on, and it goes something like this: He wakes up hung over — on a pool deck chair, in his car, or even face down in a vast dune. He then rushes to work, where he listlessly coaches kids and adults on a hotel tennis court, sneaking into the storage room for swigs of liquor.After work, he might have dinner with an older Moroccan couple who live on the island, but his frequent destination is the nightclub, where drugs are sometimes added to his alcohol consumption and where he periodically meets a random tourist for casual sex. Eventually blacking out, he wakes up the next morning and the cycle is repeated.The haunting power of “Islands” lies in its existential quandary sneaked within the framework of a film noir: When is it time for a change for someone clearly directionless, whose careless behavior hints at potential tragedy and ruin?Although Tom’s home is the stunning Fuerteventura landscape, and although he affirms his love of the island, he’s clearly bored, desolate, and dissolute. That is, until he meets Anne, a fellow Brit who is visiting with her husband, Dave, and young son, Anton. The ingenious plot that will develop involves Tom in a “missing person” mystery, which not only continues his self-destructive male tendencies but simultaneously leads him to discover that there’s something missing in his life.As well as being a psychological thriller and meditation on fate, “Islands” is something of a love story. Once Anne requests one-on-one tennis lessons for her son, she and Tom commence a tentative but clear flirtation, particularly on her part and despite the presence of her husband at times. Their bond seems predestined and not exactly spontaneous, as if they’ve met before. Yet Dave doesn’t seem to notice their lingering looks at each other, or at least chooses to ignore them. Stacy Martin in ‘Islands.’ Via Greenwich EntertainmentAs we (and Tom) get to know the couple while he acts as an unofficial tour guide, we notice Anne’s passive-aggressive tone with her husband and the lack of affection between them, observations made concrete by Dave’s later admission that it was the birth of Anton that compelled them to marry. We find out that Anne had been an actress who starred in a short-lived series about a psychotic lover, and that Dave ran her father’s company into the ground, furthering the tense, mysterious mood. His mention of their failed attempts at having another child hangs ominously in the air. One night, Dave goes missing after visiting the club. Feeling guilty over having brought him and subsequently left him there, Tom helps Anne the next day to search for her husband, and the two end up reporting him missing at the local police department. As Dave’s disappearance drags on, a revelatory twist comes to light during a scene in which Anne is questioned by the senior officer with Tom present. The development, which I will not reveal, retroactively explains the strange vibe up to this point. Some viewers might say they saw the plot twist coming, yet I admit I did not, despite registering multiple clues. Regardless of its predictability, what transpires after the reveal turns out to be more haunting than the film’s thriller set-up. After this point, the themes go deeper than surface-level duplicity, infidelity, and guilt to explore consequence, complicity, and accountability while the authorities search for Dave’s body in the waters along the shoreline and Anne acts suspiciously.As Anne, actress Stacy Martin downplays the femme fatale aspects of the role — the deceit, derision, and entitlement — to give us a glimpse at the hurt and disappointed woman underneath. And Jack Farthing, looking very much like a young Hugh Grant, is able to convey Dave’s despair beneath the upbeat facade. Naturally it’s actor Sam Riley as Tom who anchors the swirling questions of responsibility. The director’s conception of the character is more than just a washed-up tennis player who almost went pro and a man-boy who blindly falls into a tricky situation, and the actor’s understated performance aligns with this, portraying Tom as a wayward soul intuitively seeking connection and inspiration. Mr. Gerster integrates a few elements that create an italicized, sun-drenched noir feel at times, such as the lush, intimating score and a recurring bit about an errant camel. And expectations are consistently subverted, such as the outcome of Dave’s vanishing, which can be considered a MacGuffin — a story driver but ultimately beside the point. A few plot developments also come off as red herrings, but, like Hitchcock, the director had other things on his mind besides the ostensible mystery. In the end, some of the character motivations prove slippery and not all of the film’s tantalizing questions are answered. Yet its dichotomies of blackouts and searing white light, of emptiness and realization, of dislocation and destiny meld into a serious exploration of transformation.

Sun-Drenched ‘Islands’ Subverts Film Noir Conventions To Explore Desolation and Destiny

More from the New York Sun

Will Europe and the Rest of the World Listen to Marco Rubio?

Jesse Jackson’s ‘Unfinished Business’

Mamdani, in $127 Billion Budget, Puts New York City Taxpayers on the Spot in Bid To Boost Revenues

More from the New York Sun

Will Europe and the Rest of the World Listen to Marco Rubio?

Jesse Jackson’s ‘Unfinished Business’

Mamdani, in $127 Billion Budget, Puts New York City Taxpayers on the Spot in Bid To Boost Revenues

A New Documentary Showcases Billy Preston’s Musical Contribution to The Fab Four

Mamdani Threatens To Hike Property Taxes If Albany Refuses To Raise Income Taxes on Corporations and the ‘Ultrawealthy’

Transgender Cult Leader Leans on Landmark Supreme Court Second Amendment Decision for Defense

Fani Willis Refuses To Obey New Law and Pay Trump’s ‘Preposterous’ Legal Fees, Citing Bills for ‘Seafood Lunches,’ Luxury Hotels

As Iran Threatens Retaliation If America Strikes, Watch the Proxies