Jan-Ole Gerster, responsible for the outstanding tragic comedies “Oh Boy” and “Lara”, made a film in English for the first time. Internationally occupied and in an impressive backdrop! He exchanged the gray and dreary German city of the two predecessor works for the fantastic, sun -sophisticated backdrop of the island of Fuerteventura, where an opaque triangular story relaxes between palm trees, beach, clubs and chic hotel rooms. Only: The impressively ground and compact form of Gersters previous films is “Iceland“A long way away. Unfortunately, his exciting observations tire with overly careful narrative style.
Sam Riley (“Maleficent”) plays a tennis coach named Tom in “Islands”. In the luxurious resort in which he works, he gives the cool guy who granted his customers with a witty and casual kind of physical education. But it looks different behind the scenes. In his office, a barren rumpel chamber, in which the balls and rackets and all kinds of odds and ends are parked, the bottle of schnapps is hidden at hand. Dissatisfaction has crept in in Tom's life. The next crash is not far away.
Wift only comes back to everyday life when the Maguire family descends in the hotel. Tom is supposed to teach the offspring (Dylan Torrell) to play tennis. Meanwhile, there is something in the air between Tom and Mother Anne (Stacy Martin). Romantic attraction is indicated there and yet both remain distant. Tom also seems to develop fatherly feelings for the boy. But then Anne's partner Dave (Jack Farthing) appears, an ignorant, suspicious man who disappears in an inexplicable way after a party trip together …
At least the weather is nice
Jan-Ole Gerster and his co-authors Blaž Kutin and Lawrie Doran are doing an ambitious thematic entanglement from crime and thriller elements, a romance, everyday life and character study, as is known from Gerster's previous work. First of all, his film tells of all the confused attributions and longings that can be found in this artificial tourist world. The locals and workers who give the holiday guests a good time are considered an exotic stranger, in whose reality you can hardly put yourself in. You can be surrounded by the pure healing world ilusion. You always long for what you don't have yourself, but what does it actually look like on the other side?
In itself, this is not an overly original or deeply negotiated knowledge. And it would not have used an additional, striking sequence after this motif was established, in which Gerster once again showed two older men with beer glasses, who then naively claim that the tennis trainer did everything right in life. Always nice weather! Well, then everything is fine, isn't it?
There seems to be something between Tom (Sam Riley) and Anne (Stacy Martin). But what exactly?
Nonetheless, the director knows how to consistently bring the grueling opposites and disillusionment that arise in the life of his main character. He chooses the repetition as a means to make the sadness in Tom's everyday life noticeable. Blackouts and film cracks structure the film. Tom repeats Tom from his anesthetic intoxication, initially in the sand, like a dead man who rises from the desert. And Gerster slow down his film, costs the speechlessness, lies and confidentiality of his characters and pulls them in length until you are taken from this sad mood even when you watch.
Triangular romance or false track?
In this game with attributions and projections, the couple Maguire now appears, which the tennis coach seems to serve as an enemy of jealousy as an enemy as as a Redeemer from a cool relationship. And the balls are always hit over the net – out of frustration, a sense of duty or the simple certainty that the same routines always go their way. The comparison is probably a little unfair and the narrative context is different anyway, but after Luca Guadagnino's “Challengers” also told a triangular story in the center of which tennis was a conveying language, how lukewarm and weary “Icelands” is sobered is.
This is mainly due to the fact that Gerste film is so fond of the motivation of his characters and the criminal case, the disappearance of Dave, that he misses the moment to switch to the next course with his character study. His characters are wrong from A to B, first as a tourist island exploration, later as a search for traces. Nevertheless, one rarely has the impression that the central themes of the film make significant progress. Apart from the fact that this tennis coach as a protagonist is far from being as fascinating and multifaceted as Tom Schilling's figure in “Oh Boy” and Corinna Harfouchs wonderfully malicious “Lara”.
Tame genre mixture
The desire that is discussed here is disappointingly tame. A abysmal, gripping scenario under the surface, which prefers to be satisfied with the audience, slumbers whether a murder has happened here, who is how frustrated or possibly thinks of knowing itself in one way or another. When Anne exposes into the floods of the sea and look after both Tom and an inspector from a distance, there are obviously mistrust and erotic fascination and thus two central shoots in the film. But neither one nor the other is really left off the leash.
It was only in the last few minutes that an “Icelands” has back on the fishing rod, both with an impressive, memorable picture that is literally recovered from the sea, as well as with a party night in which the biographical features of the main character put a point landing. Again, Gerster tells of someone who missed missed opportunities and failed plans and may take the initiative too late. Between a fixed career and the defended father role, this film starts to dare to break out. But there is also a chance to knit a stirring story from a promising scenario. The earth begins to rumble threatening and meaningful – in the end there is no great tremor.
Conclusion: After “Oh Boy” and “Lara”, Jan-Ole Gerster's new film has hidden longings and character abyss in a deceptive vacation paradise. However, “Icelands” remains too low as a crime and slows down his actually interesting character study with unnecessarily inflated, tough mysteries.
As “Iceland” saw at the Berlinale Special as part of the Berlinale 2025, where it was shown in the Berlinale section.