I hesitate to call Rose of Nevada a ghost story, considering all the expectations and limitations that might suggest. As written and directed by Mark Jenkin, the movie is a singular experience, constructed of finely observed insert shots, disorienting sound design, and a striking color scheme. The story takes place in a down-on-its-luck Cornish fishing village, where a trawler that disappeared 30 years earlier suddenly shows up in the harbor empty of its crew. Given their dire economic predicament, a local man (George MacKay) and a drifter (Callum Turner) agree to work the vessel—only to return after three days at sea to find the village strangely changed. Jenkin’s last two films, Bait and Enys Men, were unsettling psychological experiments that flirted with the avant-garde. Rose of Nevada has a bit of that—it reminded me of Agnes Varda’s seaside-set La Pointe Courte, which was also largely defined by evocative insert shots—yet it’s ultimately more straightforward in its storytelling. There’s a clear meditation at play here about escaping (as well as embracing) a haunted past, for both the main characters and the larger community. Consider it a work of oblique horror, a ghost story that’s something of an apparition itself.
(6/23/2026)
