“German director Jan-Ole Gerster’s mesmerising, mostly English-language film ‘Islands’ opens with a scene” that would normally mark “rock bottom”, said Peter Debruge in Variety . Tom, its protagonist (Sam Riley), wakes up “in a field of sand dunes”; he could have been dropped from heaven, but it becomes clear that he has simply passed out drunk, again. The camera pans left, and there is the vast resort hotel in Fuerteventura where this washed-out former tennis pro, who claims to have once beaten Rafael Nadal, now works, teaching the game to tourists by day, and getting plastered in the island’s bars by night. He is just about getting by with this routine, but when smart English couple Anne (Stacy Martin) and Dave (Jack Farthing) turn up at the resort, his life takes an unexpected turn.

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