“I’m not running away. I like it here.” This is Tom, a tennis pro living on a sweltering resort island, caught walking a knife-edge between denial and self-reflection. It’s never made clear exactly what Tom (Sam Riley) is running from in director Jan-Ole Gerster’s newest film, Islands, but that is by design. We don’t need to know what he is specifically avoiding because he is quite clearly running from everything.
In the film’s first scene, Tom awakens face down in a sand dune. Covered in sweat and grime from partying the night before, he looks around, dumbfounded, clearly unsure of how he arrived at this particular place. The scene tells us everything we need to know about Tom and the life he has chosen. At first, it appears to be a paradise, but it is in fact a prison, or perhaps purgatory, of his own making. He wakes up, teaches tennis, drinks from a bottle stashed in his supply closet, teaches more tennis, parties, and then wakes up somewhere strange with little memory of the night before.
It’s unclear how long this cycle has been playing out, as both Tom and the unnamed island he lives on (Fuerteventura, in real life) seem to exist outside of time. As a deliberate choice, it helps illuminate both the state Tom lives in (the contrast between his lifestyle and the starkly beautiful desert landscape almost feels like cheating) and the questions the film asks.
Link: https://thatshelf.com/islands-review-sam-riley-shines-in-this-sun-drenched-mystery/
Islands: Sam Riley Shines in this Sun-Drenched Mystery | That Shelf
