Tom, a jaded tennis coach at an all-inclusive resort in the Canary Islands, drifts through his days teaching tourists and spends his nights drinking himself into oblivion. When he grows close to a visiting family, he begins to glimpse the possibility of escape. But after rising tensions culminate in the sudden disappearance of a hotel guest, Tom is drawn into the heart of a mystery. Jan-Ole Gerster’s seductive slow-burn thriller builds an atmosphere of mounting unease, heightened by Dascha Dauenhauer’s moody, dreamlike score.

Reviews

‘Islands is a holiday mystery that wrong-foots us with clever backhand.’
★★★★
Tim Robey, The Telegraph

‘Hypnotic from start to finish and unexpectedly hopeful for a movie with so much arsenic in its blood.’
★★★★
David Ehrlich, IndieWire