The Fires — The Fires( VOD)

The Fires (2025) is an Icelandic disaster thriller directed by Ugla Hauksdóttir (Alien: Earth), who co-wrote the screenplay with Markus Englmair (Blood and Milk), based on the novel by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir. The film stars Vigdís Hrefna Pálsdóttir (The Valhalla Murders) as volcanologist Anna, alongside Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones), Joi Johannsson (True Detective), Sigurður Sigurjónsson (Rams), and Ingvar E. Sigurdsson (The Northman). After 800 years of dormancy, Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula erupts without warning, forcing Anna to navigate both a volcanic catastrophe and the chaos threatening her country

The film opens with a young Anna on a volcano with her father before a troubling dream brings us to adult Anna being woken by an earthquake. She has been tracking tremors, and it was the biggest one yet. The cinematography is blimmin’ gorgeous; the Icelandic landscapes are captured beautifully, and there's a melancholy sweetness to scenes of Anna with her daughter, discussing rocks and volcanoes just as she once did with her own father. Despite missing her daughter's concert for a work meeting, there's real tenderness in these moments.

Then comes the eruption. A submarine volcano at the tip of the peninsula explodes with spectacular force, ash rising from the sea like a giant sea monster. Within minutes, Anna is rushing into action while officials scramble to understand what's happening. She drops a bombshell in a meeting: this could be the start of a new wave of 'fires'; the last time this happened, it lasted 30 years.

From here, the film takes an unexpected turn. The synopsis promises a heart-pounding survival quest, and that's what you're braced for. Instead, the narrative shifts focus. Alongside the volcanic threat, a slow-burn romance develops, one that includes affairs, parties, and intimate scenes. The metaphors work well, and the sex scenes are handled well, but it wasn’t what I was expecting, and I must be honest, it makes me feel like the film doesn’t know what it wants to be. The peninsula is burning, the land is splitting in two, yet the film lingers on romantic entanglements that feel at odds with the urgency the opening promised. Given that this is inspired by real people and real lives affected by these eruptions, the affair subplot felt like it took something away from them. It's a difficult balance, and I'm not sure the film struck it.

At 37 minutes, the film is still in slow-burn mode. By the time the tension arrives around the 1-hour-17-minute mark, it feels too little, too late, and all I kept thinking about was the disconnect between what the synopsis sold and what the film delivers. This isn't the desperate, fiery quest you're led to expect; it's a quieter, more introspective look at how personal relationships intersect with disaster. The "in memory of" dedication that rolls at the end sits uncomfortably with me.

That said, The Fires does get the technical aspects right. The acting across the board is genuine and moving. The atmosphere, that sense of dread and beauty existing at the same time, worked well. Hauksdóttir has created something visually and emotionally powerful, even if the narrative didn't quite work for me.