It was, as native New Yorkers say, mad brick outside, so I decided to escape the Brooklyn tundra by partaking in some Canary Island tennis. All it required was a subway ride and a willingness to commit mind-over-frozen-matter while settling in for Islands, the new English-language movie from German director Jan-Ole Gerster. Set in the Spanish archipelago, specifically Fuerteventura, it opens on Tom, a local sun-dappled mid-tier resort tennis pro, passed out in the dunes somewhere near where he drunkenly abandoned his car for whatever after-hours was supposed to deliver. He isn’t sleeping off a huge bender, either. Tom’s routine of hungover lessons, midday hidden Scotch bottle bracers, and evening post-session-beers-into-late-night-vodka-shot-pumping, line-bumping client-humping has more or less become his life. 

Tom (Sam Riley, best known as enigmatic, doomed Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in 2007’s Control) isn’t motivated to change much, even if he doesn’t seem to buy into the constant tourist avowal that he’s got it made in the paradisiacal shade. He’s in a rut, paradoxically kick-started by the game that brought him there. A shoulder injury thwarted a promising professional career, but thanks to a reliable big serve, he beat a vacationing Rafa Nadal in an impromptu “can you get five of 10 past El Matador?” challenge. It’s the story of his nickname, Ace—which we will be using henceforth—one he’s sick of hearing, but one that, if he doesn’t soon shake off the morning shakes, will be his legacy. 

To paraphrase English poet John Donne, “No man is an island, not even in the Canaries.” Enter Anne (Stacy Martin), an icy blonde looking to get her passive, lonely 8-year-old son Anton (Dylan Torrell) moving around out on the courts. As luck would have it, Ace is really great with kids, which means more quality time with the woman he swears he’s seen before. Anne and her unctuous, arrogant, “calls everyone bro” Brit husband, Dave (Jack Farthing), are slumming it among the hordes at an all-you-can-eat-buffet getaway spot with the idea to stabilize their crumbling marriage foundation via a weeklong getaway. Always a good plan, especially when a hot tennis pro who’s always down to go to a second location is added to the mix. 

Ace is clearly intrigued by Anne and, upon Dave’s whining about the view-of-the-dumpsters accommodations, upgrades their room for free. This leads to dinner, as the slowest of sunburns takes over Islands and it becomes a Hitchcockian character study. On his one day off, Ace takes the family on an excursion to the gorgeous non-touristy lava caves and crashing-wave beaches—virtuoso cinematographer Juan Sarmiento had me absolutely pining for the Atlantic Ocean—on the other side of Fuerteventura, a spot he sheepishly admits to Anne he hasn’t visited in years. (Yep, and on the sly, Ace rubs lotion on her naked back.) He even brings Anton to take a camel ride at a farm owned by his friend Raik (Ahmed Boulane), who, in addition to being the guy who drags the Rafa story out of Ace, is constantly having to hunt down one of their lumbering beasts, who wanders off whenever there are volcanic tremors from the nearby island of Lanzarote. It’s a full day, one that should’ve ended when Anton and Anne went to bed but carries on with Dave well into the wee hours at a loud all-night techno club, Waikiki. The off-the-chain lightweight’s intentions are clear: bottle service, selfies, sexy dance partners, and to see where it goes until daybreak. What’s not clear is where the hell Dave ended up. 

When Ace rouses to life on a poolside lounger the next morning, Anne is already in full panic mode trying to find her wayward partner. At first, the local policia assume another honey-rum-soaked idiot ended up in a stranger’s bed, but when Dave’s Hawaiian shirt (of course) turns up on shore, an all-out criminal investigation, complete with helicopter searches, gets underway. Gruff, no-bullshit Inspector Mazo (Ramiro Blas) comes in from the mainland, and the clues, coincidences, and convoluted timelines start adding up, all pointing toward Ace’s Ripley-esque infatuation. In fine Patricia Highsmith form, Gerster keeps the sociopathy at arm’s length, just enough for Ace to question his belief in Anne, drifting through life on Tinto de Verano bubbles, and if Dave’s dead, even at her murderous hands, whether they’re going to fuck.

I don’t want to give much more away, other than to say there’s a jaw-dropping moment with the wayward camel that brilliantly resets the movie, sending Ace off on a boozy exorcism of Nadal’s ghost. Unlike so many half-baked, phoned-in streaming thrillers, Islands isn’t constructed around illogical arbitrary twists. It methodically builds to a satisfying conclusion, even if not quite everything works in full.

Visually, our femme fatale commands the screen, but as a human character, Anne is underwritten, even if somewhat mysterious by necessity. As for Anton, after setting the wheels in motion, he gets stowed away and forgotten for a big middle chunk in the Kid’s Club. (Points for parental verisimilitude, I suppose.) And in the early going, the volcano metaphor is laid on thick, with Dave asking Ace, “Is it gonna erupt?” à la tempers, marriages, cuckolds, penises, and maybe, with a homicidal visitor, Fuerteventura itself. However, these are mild critiques as Ace’s response, “You never know,” captures what Islands does so well, including being a rare film that walks it off with a perfect last line. 

Ace’s Islands unraveling makes for a bewitching balmy noir, where nothing—or everything—is as it seems. It definitely satiated my wintry need for sweltering tropical climes backed by ominous strings. Which, come to think of it, would make for a great sequel title if ever Ace goes looking for Anne again.