Director: Jan-Ole Gerster

Stars: Sam Riley, Stacy Martin, Jack Farthing, Dylan Torrell

Sam Riley gets his best role since his star-making turn as Ian Curtis in 2007’s ‘Control’ in this compelling if slightly overlong noir drama. He is Tom, a rangy good-looking middle-aged tennis coach at a luxury hotel in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. A directionless, dissolute figure, Tom spends his downtime at the local nightclub where he hooks up with women for one-night stands, just about making it in time for work the next day. His life is complicated with the arrival of an English family, when attractive mother Anne (Martin) turns up requesting tennis lessons for her eight-year-old son Anton (Torrell). Feeling an immediate connection, Tom agrees to find time for Anton. Later he offers to escort the family on an island tour. Anne’s husband Dave (Farthing) is boorish and competitive, and Anne is barely able to conceal her contempt, especially when Dave tactlessly tells Tom how jealous he is of his obligation-free life. When the hitherto teatotalling Dave goes missing after a boozy night with Tom, suspicions abound, while Tom reflects on the connection between himself and Anne and Anton. The pacing is a little too languid, with nods to Antonioni’s L’Aventura narratively and in its study of alienation (the title is a clue). Dascha Dauenhauer’s lush, slightly anachronistic string-laden soundtrack, along with Juan Sarmiento G.’s hazy, woozy photography, conjure up a vivid atmosphere of disorientation. Riley is excellent as a man weighing up his options and commitments while using up his favours with colleagues and the police.

David Willoughby

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