Sun-Drenched ‘Islands’ Subverts Film Noir Conventions To Explore Desolation and Destiny

Sun-Drenched ‘Islands’ Subverts Film Noir Conventions To Explore Desolation and Destiny

As well as being a psychological thriller and meditation on fate, the film by director Jan-Ole Gerster is something of a love story.

Islands Review: Sam Riley-Led Neo Noir Plays It Too Safe

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 Berlinale coverage. Islands opens in theaters on January 30. Sam Riley stars as Tom, a washed-up tennis-pro-turned-coach at a luxury island hotel on the Canary Islands, in Islands, the English-language debut of A Coffee in Berlin director Jan-Ole Gerster. He is the protagonist, but we know little about a man seems to avoid any sort of introspection; living night by night, Tom takes a…

Interview: Jack Farthing on Social Media, AI, and ISLANDS

In ISLANDS, director Jan-Ole Gerster builds a quiet but steadily unsettling character study around people who appear to be living in paradise, yet remain fundamentally stranded. Set at a luxury island resort, the film follows Tom, a tennis coach played by Sam Riley, whose carefully arranged routine is disrupted when a family enters his orbit — and later, when the father disappears. While Riley’s performance anchors the film with restraint and in…

ISLANDS Review: Sun, Sand, Stripped-Down Noir

Sam Riley and Stacy Martin star in director Jan-Ole Gerster's sun-soaked thriller. [Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Islands — Jan-Ole Gerster [Review]

The score of Jan-Ole Gerster’s Islands is one of the first signals about its intended genre and reference points: with lush, orchestral strings overlaid by jazzy piano and trumpet, Dascha Dauenhauer’s compositions raise the specter of Bernard Herrmann. With the score’s first chords resonating as a weathered, yet handsome middle-aged man drives away from a [...] The post Islands — Jan-Ole Gerster [Review] appeared first on In Review Online.