Movie Details
Island/Ostrov (2023)
Director:Rudolf Havlík
Cast-ana Plodková as Alice, Jirí Langmajer as Richard, Ted Otis as Jimmy Holiday, Tereza Slánská as Dcera, and Matej Kuzel.
Movie type- Adventure/Romance
Release date- 2 February 2023
IMDB Rating-5.2
Languages- Czech and Slovakia
Duration-1 Hour 40 Minutes
Trailer
Synopsis
The indefatigable Rudolf Havlík served us two titles last year and he is coming with another at the end of this year. The President and the second part What Men Desire didn’t quite deserve the praise, although enough viewers came to the cinemas to see them – a hundred thousand viewers saw Anna Geislerová as the head of state in love, and more than two and a half times as many went to see Anna Polívková in the body of Jiří Langmajer. The trailer for the new Ostrov also did not promise that Havlík and co-screenwriter Filip Oberfalcer wanted to change the successful formula in any way, but the result is much more dignified than expected.
The idea for the creation of a new romcom allegedly arose during a vacation in Thailand, which Jiří Langmajer spent not only with his wife Adéla Gondíková, but also with Havlík and (apparently) with other people as well. The director was intrigued by the scrounging of a popular couple in the backdrop of a tropical paradise, so he decided to prepare a film on this topic, which he said he devoted a lot of time to. And it can truly be said that the work surpasses the standard of domestic romantic comedies after all.
Filming took place in Thailand, but the action takes place somewhere in the South Pacific. We follow the cold marriage of Richard (Langmajer) and Alice (Jana Plodková), who are on vacation together perhaps only because of their teenage daughter, otherwise they have nothing in common. Alice tries a little more to rekindle the relationship, but the constantly busy and absent Richard has already apparently resigned. After a while, he shuffles the cards dealt like this when he discovers that Richard has already filed for divorce – but he still went on vacation. The script contains a whole series of similarly strange illogicalities, which can be relatively easily waved off, but fortunately, it only really becomes problematic in the artificially heightened conclusion.
After the initial relationship drama, Alice decides to end the vacation early, but the only way to quickly leave the resort is on a dubious cargo plane, which crashes somewhere along the way. The main and sometimes somewhat lengthy middle passage maps the efforts of a quarreling couple to survive in the demanding conditions of an abandoned island.
During the 100-minute footage, the film immediately switches between three genres: adventure survival, a sad romance about the rapprochement of estranged spouses, and a relaxed comedy in a tropical setting. Humorous passages rely on verbal skirmishes in the spirit of the recent Ticket to Paradise or on the contrived scenes known from similar works such as Six Days, Seven Nights – the scene in which Richard looks for a snake in Alice’s groin, although she has exchanged the lagoon for a blanket, but the principle remains the same, like when Harrison Ford and Anne Heche did the same a quarter of a century ago. The survival passages are of course reminiscent of Castaway , and at least the shots of the bloodied faces of the protagonists after the plane crash capture a greater degree of naturalism than we would expect from such a picture.
The heroes get to grips with life on a desert island relatively quickly, so they have no shortage of water, food or protection from the raging elements. At that moment, space opens up to solve their relationship pains, which, thanks to the unquestionable charisma of both actors’ faces, does not seem bad at all. The creative indecision, which of the possible paths to take, is ultimately manifested in the fact that the entire plot is filled with predictable clichés, which the viewer must expect after reading the annotation.
From a producer’s point of view, it makes sense that due to the expenses of filming on the other side of the planet, it doesn’t make sense to indulge in any surprises. The necessary product placement occurs essentially only in the introduction, which acts like an advertising video of a travel agency, but then there is simply no room to graft a plethora of paying brands into the story. The script therefore avoids any risks and makes popular actors and attractive locations stand out.
Compared to more common romantic comedies of Czech provenance, Ostrov can therefore rely not only on an attractive environment and decent craftsmanship, but above all on the absence of sexist cringe and surviving relationship patterns detached from today’s reality. From the point of view of the general evaluation of films, it is only average, but by the standards of the domestic concept of the romcom genre, it is a functionally processed product, which, although it does not dazzle, does not surprise and in some places is a little boring, but in the end it does not offend in any way.
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