Rose of Nevada
**Seen at the 2026 Atlanta Film Festival
Mark Jenkin’s “Rose of Nevada” feels like a work of magical realism, and Gothic horror, though it takes place in the modern era. It’s a bit tricky to wrap one’s head around the logic of his screenplay, but it did pull me in, and I’ve thought a lot about it since. It’s a fascinating look at being stuck in an endless cycle in life, and whether that’s enough for us. Whether it’s a movie I’ll revisit is another story.
One thing that is undeniable is that George MacKay is an absolutely magnetic presence when given the material. Even as the WWI soldier trying to make his way to the front lines in Sam Mendes’s “1917,” there is a feral intensity to his facial expressions that grabs us profoundly. Jenkin’s screenplay has him in a perpetual state of constantly being on edge about his life, whether it’s the early scenes of domesticity with his wife and child, or when he finds himself constantly going out on a fishing boat, and when it appears that he is in the past instead of moving ahead.
There’s a story in the small fishing town that MacKay’s Nick and Callum Turner’s Liam about a fishing boat, the Rose of Nevada, and how it vanished on a trip. Somehow, it begins, and a local businessman gets it sea ready once again. Nick and Liam are part of its crew. One of the realistic elements of “Rose of Nevada” is how it shows that for this town, the success or failure of a fishing haul is the life blood of the community, not just the people on the ship. They seem to have hit it big, however, but somehow, they find themselves in the past. Parents and loved ones recognize them, though, even though Nick and Liam would have been kids- or not born- yet. The how and why of the film’s traveling back in time is not as interesting to Jenkin as what this life means for the characters. “Rose of Nevada” has a very methodical pace, which makes it a tough watch if you don’t vibe with it. I did, to a point, but I still found myself wanting a bit more clarity, and less ambiguity.
