This review contains spoilers, so be sure to watch the film before reading!
In Rose of Nevada, Mark Jenkin takes us to a coastal village that, ever since a ship went missing 30 years ago, has been decaying. Now the ship has mysteriously returned, almost as if the tides had brought it home. Liam (Callum Turner), a drifter, and Nick (George MacKay), aiming to provide for his family, alongside their skipper, Murgey (Francis Magee), take the ship back to sea, hoping not to reach the same fate as the last crew.
When the Glasgow Film Festival program was announced, Rose of Nevada became my most-anticipated film in the lineup. Jenkin is one of the most exciting voices in the UK film space, with his previous films Bait (2019) and Enys Men (2021). He understands this idea of ‘Cornish’ horror, a sub-genre of Gothic literature or films that use Cornwall’s incredible yet isolated and rugged landscape to evoke a sense of folklore horror.
Rose of Nevada was positioned as a time-travel horror, which I have always found really interesting to explore. However, Rose of Nevada isn’t that; instead, it becomes a purgatorial horror of individuals damned to repeat a cycle that only at the very end do they realize their fate. It’s similar to Triangle (2009).
Once it was revealed to our sailors that this is not time travel but a loop of guilt and misfortune, it added a new angle to the film’s horror. Because, like our crew, we have this false sense that we can just go back. It’s surely that simple. But they can’t; instead, they are just treading water with nowhere to go.
Jenkin explores the terror of the saying”‘Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” If our sailors don’t do anything, they can’t leave, but if they try to discover what is going on, it’s far worse. What can they do except tread water? It leaves the audience in an interesting place because it’s the same for us.
Throughout the film, Jenkin effectively hints that something is off in this village. This ship’s return has brought intrigue to this decaying town. Slowly, we piece things together as Liam does. The tone is like a ghost town; something is always feeling off or sinister.
Also working behind the camera, Jenkins handles cinematography himself, using an analogue, self-shooting 16mm style, which adds an otherworldly feel to the film. He worked on sound design with Sandy Buchanan, Luca Stefan Vasile Berde as a post-production assistant, and Ian Wilson as re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor. His approach was to add sound in post-production to the ship, creating a character in itself — something that could feel pain.
With our crew’s performance, what really works is that they all feel like perfect representatives of each other’s true selves, which, in a way, makes the ship bring them together as a way of making fun of them. Mackay, as Nick, prides himself on being a family man who is on this ship because he is providing, but actually, how much of this ship returning was an excuse for him to leave? Out of the three, he is the one who has a clear, helpless sense of “What I have done to deserve this.”
With Turner as Liam, he is this drifter who clearly likes to come across as a bit of a lad, but underneath that bravado is someone who has been about that much. He is clearly looking for stability in the sense of a family like Nick’s.
Rounding out our crew is Magee in the role of Murgey, the skipper who loves being out on the sea; for him, that is home more than the land. What does he have outside of this ship? All three, as I said, work well together because it feels like the ship enticed all three to work alongside each other.
Rose of Nevada captures the horror of being in a cycle defined by guilt: no matter what you do, you drown in it, which can feel inescapable.
Review Courtesy of Matthew Allan
Feature Image Credit to Steve Tanner