‘Islands’ Review: There’s Trouble In Paradise In Jan-Ole Gerster’s Slow-Burn Drama – Berlin Film Festival

deadline.com:

Tennis pro Tom lives in a mellow paradise teaching tourists at a hotel in the Canary Islands. “Permanent sun, permanent fun,” as one client puts it.

But why does it also look a bit like Groundhog Day: every day, Tom gets up, coaches people on hitting the ball, visits his friend who has a farm or maybe goes to a nightclub, and the next morning wakes up in someone else’s bed, hung over again.

The Canary Islands is not a circle of hell, granted, but he’s getting close to circling the drain. Not that Tom, played by a rumpled Sam Riley, ever looks especially perturbed: when Islands begins, he’s waking up on a desert dune for a change, but he heads to his car and just gets on with his day at the four-star-ish hotel.

Soon after, Jan-Ole Gerster’s slow-burn drama ignites when a watchful new hotel guest, Anne (Stacy Martin), arrives wanting tennis lessons for her 7-year-old.