Rose of Nevada (2026)

There seems to be some debate over the official title of Mark Jenkin's new film. Debate in my own head anyway. It seems to be called "Rose of Nevada" everywhere except by the BBFC, who have coined it "The Rose of Nevada". Either way, it's Jenkin's third feature film after the truly astonishing Bait (2019) and his impressive follow-up, 2022's Enys Men.

Jenkin's filmmaking is steeped in Cornish culture, and Rose of Nevada is no different, taking place entirely in a tiny Cornish village and at sea. It tells the tale of a vanished fishing trawler that gives the film its title, which reappears one day after going missing in a storm some thirty years previously. A local fisher played by Edward Rowe spots it one morning and decides it should be put back out to work, with a crew consisting of a grizzled captain (Francis Magee) and two young crew members from the town: George MacKay's Nick and Callum Turner's Liam.

The small town is in disrepair, and the docks are empty; this is a town that has seen far better days. The local pub is bare; Nick's house, where he lives with his wife and young daughter, has a leaking roof; and the whole town is a ghostly shadow of its former self. These are local themes that Jenkins brought us in Bait, a film whose characters bemoaned the influx of Airbnbs and the growing tourist trade, but, in some ways, the town in Rose of Nevada is what the town in Bait could have become had tourism not been forced upon it.

Jenkin's insistence on shooting all his work on 16mm and overdubbing the dialogue and ambient sound means his work is distinctive in a way that could never be mistaken for anyone else's. It's astonishingly effective, and in the case of Rose of Nevada, it pulls you into the story; the close-up shots of faces and places force you to become a part of it. Once the crew set sail, Nick is perturbed by the etching of the words 'Get off the boat now' scratched into the ghost ship's woodwork below deck, and when they return to shore with a boat full of fish, they find they're not where they were expecting to be. The dock is full of workers, the pub is rammed, and Liam appears to have a girlfriend and child. It's actually thirty years previous, and the entire town believes Nick and Liam are the two men who vanished thirty years ago, along with the Rose of Nevada. Nick's house is empty, there's no sign of his family, and he wants answers fast. Liam is less distressed by the situation; he seems to accept his fate, although, as he stipulates to Liam shortly after, his current reality is perhaps more palatable than the one he left behind.

As is always the case with Jenkin's films, you need to pay attention, and even then, you won't pick up on everything. Every single shot has meaning, compounded by the hand-developed scratches on the print. And just like in Enys Men, this effect gives Rose of Nevada a constantly haunting backdrop; you're never quite sure what's going on or what's around the corner. It sparks numerous questions for the audience to ponder, but unlike your average time-travel film, every single scene feels like it means something, and ultimately, it has quite an effect on you. I personally felt quite overwhelmed by the end of it, and I'm still not entirely sure why.

Rose of Nevada is a complex and intoxicating piece of work; you can almost breathe in the Cornish air that permeates the screen. Magee's captain, whose real name has been "lost in the wind," repeatedly tells Nick and Liam that everyone on shore is relying on them, but it feels like there's more reason for that beyond simply bringing home a haul of fish. There's a purgatorial element to their voyages out to sea, and Nick is left with another hammer blow to the heart when they return, and they're still in the past, if indeed that truly is the case. There's so much to unpack here that one viewing won't do the film justice. And I, for one, cannot wait to dive back in.

The performances are all superb; MacKay is swiftly becoming one of the best in the business, and Turner matches him as the pair sell you their opposing attitudes to the situation. Jenkin regulars Mary Woodvine and Edward Rowe play the same characters in both time scales, while Magee is a blast as the Rose of Nevada's captain, whose role in all this has thus evaded me, but it's surely key. Rose of Nevada is one of those rare films that constantly makes you think long after it's ended. It sweeps you up in its atmospheric waves and spits you out at the conclusion while you try to figure out just exactly what's unfurled while you've been on board. And as I wrote that sentence, it just occurred to me that this might even be the boat's story rather than the characters themselves. Perhaps it's the ghost ship itself that's embedded the words "Get off the boat now" on its own body, a warning that no one heeds. Or do they?

Rose of Nevada is a master at work, a craftsman so attuned with his tools that you stop watching the film and start inhabiting it. And I'm not convinced that it's even his best film.

9.0/10