What it is is a homecoming—but not for who you might expect. Nadine grew up on the South Island and under the gaze of Roy (Robert Wisdom), the island’s aging patriarch. For the sake of this movie, he might as well be Nadine’s parental figure; while her father is mentioned briefly, Roy is the one to gift her his own spear so she can go fishing underwater, to check in with how she’s coping with an unspeakable loss. The latter isn’t on Nadine and Lewis’ radar, as they fervently try to enjoy themselves, or at least approximate a laidback island experience. But just as their going-through-the-motions is false, director Sandler (who co-wrote the script with Thymaya Payne) reveals that the stereotype of a carefree island is a ruse: the community is rife with tension, even in nighttime Junkanoo carnival dances around bonfires. The waves around the island roil ominously, reminding viewers of how deadly the water can be, especially when paired with thunderstorms from above. The only truly peaceful moments (also the film’s most beautiful) are when Nadine goes hunting underwater with even more ease than she has on the ground; yet even a scene of her prodding at a baby shark has its own dark lining. Complicating things is Myron (Sam Dillon), another young white person who might as well be the opposite of Nadine: he lives in a shack without a shower and with a mother who doesn’t return his calls; he dreams of making it big off the island, but they obviously will never materialize. He’s like a local stray dog, too-thin and begging at various tables for scraps. Roy gladly brings him under his wing, hiring Myron to help take care of the boat when Nadine and Lewis go fishing. Myron is immediately taken with Nadine: her looks, yes, but also the idyllic life that marrying her must be. (Clearly, his own dreams are masking her reality.) And while Roy would be no help in hooking up Myron with his pseudo-daughter, Doughboy completely recognizes the naked hunger in Myron’s eyes. But when Myron tentatively admits to ambitious plans like a GED, Doughboy shoots him down—it’s not an education he needs; it’s capital. “Women like resourceful,” he tells the hopelessly naïve boy, bringing him into his questionable enterprise. Sandler spent at least part of his adolescence growing up in the Bahamas; you have to wonder who he is more like, Nadine or Myron. But perhaps such omissions in the narrative are intentional. Perhaps we’re meant to be the outsiders, peering in to the roiling waves without a clear sense of what’s happening just beneath the surface.