Rose of Nevada, 2025.
Written and Directed by Mark Jenkin.
Starring George MacKay, Callum Turner, Francis Magee, Edward Rowe, Rosalind Eleazar, Mary Woodvine, Adrian Rawlins, Yana Penrose, Mae Voogd, and Emily Daglish-Laine.
SYNOPSIS:
A mysterious boat returns to a village 30 years after vanishing. Two men join its crew hoping for better fortune. After one voyage, they find themselves transported back in time, mistaken for the originalcrew.
Fittingly, a narrative that eventually crosses over into time travel is concerned with complete immersion in times and spaces. The hypnotic, analog, and dreamy soundscape approach, once again utilized here, has become a singular trademark for Mark Jenkin, not only Rose of Nevada‘s writer and director but its editor, cinematographer, composer, sound designer, and who knows what else. With images shot in the Academy ratio and covered in grain, the filmmaker is just as fixated on extreme close-ups of his characters as he is on lingering shots of rusted junk, spray-painted buildings, and anything else that underscores that this once-thriving seaside fishing town has fallen on hard times.
Chiefly responsible for the economic decline is the disappearance of the titular fishing trawler, the Nevada, which also mysteriously lost one of its key crew members. 30 years later, it has inexplicably and suddenly returned, much to the shock of one of the locals, spreading the news somewhere between excitable and terrified. Facing financial hardship as a result of the town’s steep slide into obsolescence is George MacKay’s married father, Nick, who seems to make the structural failings on the roof of his house worse any time he attempts to investigate or repair it (as demonstrated by loopy sequences of him falling through the roof). Soon, he won’t have a place for his family to live, so it’s only natural that he would throw his name in the hat to become part of the new crew on the revived Nevada’s fishing expeditions.
Nick is also joined by a wandering drifter, Liam (Callum Turner), led by a captain as experienced as he is heavily bearded (played by Francis Magee with crotchety, sage-like confidence and blunt instructions; cut the fish from head-to-asshole, he routinely insists). Before departing, there are also glimpses of Nick adding to his stress looking after a neighboring older couple, which includes a dementia-stricken wife, whereas Liam ends up flirting with the daughter of the man who was lost at sea 30 years ago.
Anyone who has seen a film from Mark Jenkin (he most recently did the similarly visually intoxicating if narratively frustrating Enys Men) knows that he is meticulously obsessed with depicting small touches, which here means that everything about the fishing aspect, from casting the net to closeups of machinery at work to fish being spliced open. In other words, it’s all material that comes from a filmmaker who has immersed himself in this job, or has done an astounding amount of research (it’s also not his only fishermen tale, having made Bait with some of the same actors and crew). Part of why this is important to note is that, even when the film becomes a mind-bending time travel tale with thematic thoughtfulness about past and present, and admittedly sometimes a puzzle to piece together that can be both fascinating and sluggishly paced, Rose of Nevada is another striking visual achievement that is unlike any of its contemporaries.
Transported 30 years into the past (notably before Nick was even born), the town is bustling and profitable, largely retaining the same look and feel, though without the dirtiness. It lends an eeriness to much of what Mark Jenkin has to say about time and moving forward, and an emotionality felt through George MacKay’s performance, even if this is a film light on dialogue and conventional storytelling tactics. Understandably, Nick is disoriented and alarmed that the return from the voyage has not only brought them back into the past but also placed them in a version of the town that recognizes him and Liam as the two fishermen who went missing on that expedition 30 years ago.
Also unsettling to Nick and us is how quickly Liam is to accept what is happening; physically and emotionally lost in the present day, now suddenly mistakenly perceived as the father of the daughter, as if he never went missing this time, now flirting with the mother, and seemingly having something to live for, gifted a family that isn’t his. As Nick says, surely this is Illegal. Perhaps he should have heeded the warning on the boat that said to get off it immediately. Then again, if everyone listened, we wouldn’t have this psychological freak-out that flips the dynamics of its characters alongside the present and the past. Much like the haunted ship itself, it’s easy to get lost in Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada.
Flickering Myth Rating– Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
