Islands

Directed by Jan Ole Gerster
Starring: Sam Riley, Stacy Martin, Jack Farthing
Released 12 September
7/10

Whatever happened to Sam Riley? Back in 2007, making his debut in Anton Corbijn’s balefully beautiful Ian Curtis biopic Control, his gaunt profile was inescapable and he was feted as a rising star of British cinema. Since then he has been Pinkie in the misguided mod remake of Brighton Rock (2010), Sal Paradise in Walter Salles’ stalled version of On The Road (2012) and Jack Favell in Ben Wheatley’s baffling version of Rebecca (2020). 

If that feels like a career that never quite took off, it makes him perfect casting as Tom, the magnificently seedy, gone to seed Fuertaventura hotel tennis coach in the lush, existential intrigue of Islands. In his youth, Tom supposedly once aced Rafa Nadal, though it’s hard to remember, so embellished is the story in island anecdote, and so pickled is his memory from a decade or more of squandering his promise in booze, coke and holiday shags.

He’s roused from his stupor by the arrival of Anne (a languid, blonde Stacy Martin), and her feckless, reckless husband Dave (Jack Farthing, clearly having found his niche after his simpering Prince Charles in Spencer), who want tennis lessons for their young son, Anton. There’s something strangely familiar about Anne, which she puts down to her own brief acting career, but Tom is sufficiently intrigued to offer them a tour of the island, whose charms he’s long grown blind to.

It all comes on a little like Patricia Highsmith writes the next season of White Lotus. Dave disappears after a night on the town, Anne reveals some very mixed motives, and, as he steps in to look after their abandoned son Anton, Tom finds himself pondering mysterious gaps in his own memory. Islands doesn’t quite deliver on promise of its opening first hour, but with his whisky-soaked drawl and magnificently hungover dishevelment, it feels like Sam Riley has finally got his groove back.