Tina Kakadelis
While it may not seem like it, the beauty of a vacation is that it ends. As tempting as it may be to spend all day every day on the sunny beaches of some faraway place, their fleeting nature is what makes these places special. In Jan-Ole Gerster’s upcoming Islands, the holiday locale of Fuerteventura acts as a place of both relaxation and stagnation. The film follows a washed-up tennis pro, Tom (Sam Riley), who took a job as tennis instructor at one of the hotels on the island. His life is tennis and partying. As wonderful as that sounds, he finds himself stuck in a rut until he crosses paths with a mother, Anne (Stacy Martin), who’s interested in lessons for her son (Dylan Torrell). Tom befriends Anne and her husband, Dave (Jack Farthing), but tragedy strikes after he spends a day with them. Dave has gone missing and Tom finds himself trapped in a whirlpool of a murder investigation alongside the prime suspect.
Spiritually, Islands is a noir, but visually, it doesn’t have the harsh shadows one would expect from such a film. Gerster’s stylistic approach of a sunny noir was inspired by a curated collection of films on the Criterion Channel called “Vacation Noir.”
“I fell in love with that term because I thought, next time they make that selection of films, I want my film to be part of it,” smiles Gerster.
“I wasn’t aware that I was even dealing with a noir until I really started developing the film,” he continues. “In the beginning I was fascinated with this guy who stands on a tennis court day in and day out. He’s still living like he was in his mid-twenties and just forgot at one point that he should change his life.”
“For a while, it was just a character on the island,” explains Gerster. “I thought, what would be nice to confront him with? What is it that would rebuild his emotional life and make him realize things about his own situation? Then I had the idea of confronting him with a family. Once I thought about a family, I thought it would be nice if the husband could disappear and the tennis coach takes his place. Out of nowhere, suddenly there was this crime aura in the film.”
The husband who disappears is Dave, and while he’s gone for most of the film, his absence is felt by all the characters. His disappearance pushes the entire film forward. In many ways, Tom and Dave are antithetical to one another. Each has what the other wants. Tom wants the stability and love of a family while Dave misses his partying days.
“Dave really doesn’t see the paralysis of Tom’s character,” Farthing states. “He just sees the pleasure and the freedom and the escape. Dave is obviously very regressive. He’s very stuck. He’s much more comfortable as a child and he’s never really been able to push beyond that.”
“On the page, there was a really interesting, rich, three-dimensional, vulnerable portrait of masculinity,” Farthing goes on to say. “Someone who’s constantly aching to prove himself and is so transparent, immediately. He goes missing for a big chunk of the film, but I feel like he really establishes his complexity quickly.”
“There’s a struggling masculinity in both characters,” adds Gerster. “There’s Tom, who still lives a life like he’s the young Playboy he used to be. He has affairs, drinks, takes drugs, and wakes up in all the wrong places. Then there’s Jack’s character Dave, who’s struggling with his role as a responsible father, husband, and boss. Neither seems to appreciate what they have.”
“Since it’s set in the holiday and tourism world, I wanted to make a movie where everybody goes on a holiday in the life of another,” continues Gerster.
On the other side of this equation is Riley’s Tom. He seems like the aloofly cool tennis pro, but in reality, he’s trapped in a profound well of sadness, although it’s a sadness he refuses to acknowledge.
“I don’t think Tom thinks very much,” jokes RIley. “I think he’s certainly trapped, but I think he spends a lot of time convincing himself that isn’t the case. He’s reassured by the guests at the resort, who tell him he’s living a great life.”
“When Anne and Dave arrive, it’s the first time in I don’t know how many years that Tom suddenly becomes aware of himself and aware of what his life is,” offers Riley. “I think it’s very alarming to him. The fact that he hasn’t been around the island or the fact that he hasn’t done any of these things. That’s one of the things I loved about the character. That this family awakens something in him.”
In the world of this vacation noir, Martin’s Anne is the film’s femme fatale. The viewer spends much of the film wondering what Anne’s involvement is with her husband’s disappearance. Is she a heartbroken wife struggling to process her missing husband? Or is she a woman secretly thrilled that she’s alone? This ambiguity is what Martin liked about the role.
“What drew me initially to the part was that I had no idea what Anne was thinking,” admits Martin. “I thought, well, I’m reading this character, I’m fascinated by her because there are so many ways she can go. To read and to watch her, it’s exciting.”
“But then you have to actually build it and perform it,” laughs Martin. “I was trying to think of ways that wouldn’t fall into the cliched or expected ways of building a murderous character. I spoke to Jan-Ole and I said, look, if there’s room on the day to do takes that are different, that you can play around in the edit to create some sort of uncertainty, I’d like to try.”
“Every choice, though, is always rooted in something. In a decision and a point of view,” explains Martin. “It’s a mix of performance choices on the day, but also in editing. That’s where you can really play around and build something that’s a bit odd.”
Islands is not the first instance of tennis playing a role in a mystery movie. Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train famously centered on a tennis pro who found himself in a murder plot. What is it about the sport that makes it, and its players, susceptible to being involved in murder investigations?
“The thing about tennis is you’re really just playing against yourself a lot of the time,” says Riley. “Your own mental strength or weakness. There are so many brilliant players who just don’t have the thing that would make them a pro.”
“I think there’s something very immediate about the sport,” offers Martin. “I’ve never played tennis in my life. I thought I would finally get to do it with this film and then it never happened.”
“Just mini golf,” adds Riley with a laugh.
“Just mini golf, which is a much sadder version,” jokes Martin. “I think tennis has this thing, even when you watch it, there’s something extremely violent about it. Just face to face with someone else. I think that sort of physical aspect of it, and that extremely demanding aspect of it, is quite confronting.”
