Rose of Nevada
Mark Jenkin
UK cinemas now; US cinemas, 19 June

Time moves strangely in lifeless places – that much is clear in Rose of Nevada, the new film from director Mark Jenkin. It’s set in a fishing village in Cornwall, UK, a place stripped of its industry and inhabitants. Amid empty pubs and abandoned moorings, the flotsam and jetsam of former prosperity, a few haunted souls remain. Even the ocean is empty.

What better place to set a ghost story than a ghost town? After all, what are ghosts, if not an accident of time? There’s a good reason why this village seems to exist outside conventional chronology, it turns out. Three decades earlier, when life was good, a fishing vessel and its short-handed crew fell victim to the sea. The loss of the men pervades the village still. Nothing was ever recovered and the tragedy never abated. That is, until one day, the cherry-red Rose of Nevada reappears in the harbour.

The boat couldn’t have arrived at a better time for Nick (George MacKay). A husband and father, he struggles to make ends meet even before his roof starts leaking. It’s also good news for Liam (Callum Turner), an itinerant worker who sleeps at the docks until he is recruited by the Rose of Nevada’s owner, Mike (Edward Rowe). Nick and Liam are to be led by grizzled rent-a-skipper Murgey (Francis Magee), an experienced sailor who seems to pop into existence alongside the once-missing vessel.

Together, the men set out in search of valuable catch – enough to mend Nick’s roof, fill Liam’s pockets and maybe even save the village. But when the Rose of Nevada returns to dry land, something is amiss. They are back where they started, yes, but 30 years before they left. Stranger still, the younger men have been mistaken for two locals: Liam for Alan, an absentee father who, in their timeline, disappeared with the Rose of Nevada; and Nick for Luke, another fisherman whose guilt for missing work that fateful day led to his eventual suicide.

What all this means – and what happens next – is open to interpretation. What is undeniable is just how sad Rose of Nevada can be. MacKay’s performance as Nick is particularly heartbreaking. On realising he is unmoored in time, Nick runs to his now-empty home, to find his neighbours (the parents of long-lost Luke) now welcoming him as their son. He steals glances at a note his wife packed in his bag the day he left (“We love you!”) in unspeakable anguish.

The stretches of the film set out at sea provide succour. If nothing else makes sense to Nick, fishing does: the repeated, rhythmic hauling of fish and the shuddering motor seem to bring him comfort. The process is life-giving, not just for Nick, but for the entire village waiting for him back on shore.

Rose of Nevada is the third instalment of Jenkin’s Cornish trilogy. The first, Bait, was a kitchen sink drama about the corrosive effect of tourism on coastal towns; the second, Enys Men, saw a lone wildlife volunteer plagued by visions while living on a remote island. Elements of both show up in this new film, from its setting to its mesmerising visuals. It’s hard not to see it as a culmination, particularly since the hand-cranked Bolex camera on which Jenkin shot the first two films gave up the ghost shortly before the latest was completed.

If this is the end of a chapter in Jenkin’s career, I’ll be sad to see it go. I’d watch a dozen more films in the same Cornish milieu directed with such flair. Rose of Nevada is a real achievement: a haunting tale of time lost, owed and regained.

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Rose of Nevada star George MacKay has been on a fantastic run lately. One of his best performances is in this nail-biting erotic thriller, in which drag queen Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is badly beaten up by Preston (MacKay) and his friends in a homophobic attack. Months later, when Preston meets Jules again at a gay sauna and fails to recognise him, Jules seeks revenge on his former assailant.

Bethan Ackerley is a subeditor at New Scientist. She loves sci-fi, sitcoms and anything spooky. Follow her on X @inkerley