ROSE OF NEVADA Review

A small fishing village is in quite a slump. Thirty years ago, their livelihood depended on a fishing vessel called Rose of Nevada, and a storm took out the ship and its crew. One morning, the ship mysteriously returns into the harbor. Local businessman and owner of the boat Mike (Edward Rowe) is stunned, but sees this as an opportunity. Nick (George MacKay) is a husband and father, struggling to make ends meet. While trying to fix the roof of his home, it collapses in on him. Liam (Callum Turner) drifts from job to job, sleeping at the dock where the ship has returned to. Naturally, this opportunity is huge for both of them. The trip goes great, they catch boatloads worth of fish. However, when they return, something is very different.

The central character of Rose of Nevada is the town. The town feels as if it is one cohesive life-form. It possesses a collective memory, and carrying both a trepidation about the ship's return, but also a sense of hope that the glory days may return with it. The town has emotional scars that have yet to be healed, yet it is prepared to continue to fight for itself. The town is a physical, lived-in embodiment of the angst and the loss that everyone has experienced. Rose of Nevada is ultimately a study of time and place, through the lens of a small Cornish fishing village.

It also refuses to settle into a single genre. It is constantly shifting between mystery, psychological drama and the supernatural. The supernatural elements aren't treated as spectacle. Despite featuring time travel, the film never feels like science fiction. It also evokes elements of folk horror from time to time, in very subtle ways. Every genre switch feels organic, serving as a different tonal avenue for the story to unfold, rather than just taking a dramatic left turn. I think the way that this film travels through time most reminds me of a ghost story. It has an eeriness to it, and the film never loses its wild sense of mystery.

George MacKay is the closest thing to an actual lead actor this film has. He delivers the best performance I have seen from him. MacKay captures a man who is truly lost, and he delivers this really gentle, confused performance that makes it impossible not to empathize with him. Callum Turner is great too, as the guy who is essentially willing to go along with the supernatural changes to his life, simply because he has love in it now. It's really interesting to see a character so bluntly ignore something completely surreal, just because his life is better than it was. Rosalind Eleazar gives a really powerful supporting turn here, I actually think she is the standout of the entire cast in a way. She has a very commanding screen presence, and conveys a great intelligence in this film. I thought Francis Magee was really good as the grizzled old sea captain, and Mary Woodvine was a very honest and pure hug that the film needed at points.

Rose of Nevada is technically fascinating as well. Director Mark Jenkin insists upon shooting all of his movies in 16mm. The longest possible take he can get with his particular reel is 30 seconds. This is a huge limitation, but it ends up being a really unique tool the film has at its disposal. It creates this even weirder perception of time and place, as you never really get to sit in one moment for too long. The grainy cinematography gives the film a tactile quality, making it feel as though the film exist between memory and reality. This is going to be one of the finest looking films that comes out all year. The rough look of it connects back so well to the town itself, and the tone the film sets out to achieve in the first place.

Initially, the rapid-fire editing feels excessive. It is the one aspect of the film that draws a great deal of attention to itself. The more the story progresses, the more essential it begins to feel. There are a few transitions that are just fantastic. This is the closest it ever gets to pure horror, in these brief moments of shock in-between scenes. The sound design is a huge part of that, and easily one of the major highlights of the film, especially given the way they did it. With the 16mm, there was no microphone. All of the sound was added in post. Literally every single sound. The dialogue, the background noise, the mechanical sounds of the ship. It is truly impressive to find out, especially when you walked out of the theater immediately thinking about how memorable the sound was.

Rose Of Nevada is a haunting yet meditative look at memory and grief, through the lens of place. Sitting somewhere between a supernatural thriller and an emotionally resonant drama, it's one of the years most distinctive films. It's easily one of the best looking and sounding releases of the year.

🍿 SCORE = 89 / 100