Rose of Nevada

Released 2026. Director: Mark Jenkin

THIRTY YEARS AGO, TWO FISHERMEN went out to sea off the south coast of England and never came home. Thirty years later, their boat, the "Rose of Nevada", floats back to the sleepy village with nobody onboard.

Rose of Nevada is a mystery steeped in time and place. Director Mark Jenkin dips the audience in a montage of close-ups that leave no doubt where we are. Rust on metal chains, frayed fishing nets, rotting wood, peeling paint, lichens and washed-up seaweed. He pairs the images he shot on grainy film stock in a tight aspect ratio with the slosh of wellies, the creaking of the fishing boat and the squawks of seagulls. Although the modest budget can be apparent at times, his technique immerses the audience so convincingly you could almost smell the brine and taste the salt in the air.

This fishing village is dying. The streets are quiet, old houses dilapidated and shops are shuttered. Nick (George Mackay) picks up a food parcel from the community food bank for his elderly neighbours Mr and Mrs Richards. The old lady is standing outside in the rain in her night gown, eyes glazed and muttering, still waiting for the return of her son Luke, one of the two missing men. Nick's wife Emily comes out to coax Mrs Richards back inside. Not far away, Tina, widow of Alan, the other man who disappeared, berates her grown daughter Jess, both still suffering the loss of their husband and father. Back in Nick's home, water is puddling from a leak in the roof. Nick climbs up and tries to patch it but falls through. The future looks bleak for these struggling families.

To find money for repairs and food Nick would need a job, so he agrees to go on the Rose of Nevada with Liam (Callum Turner), a drifter in dire need of work, hoping to bring in a fishing haul. The skipper Murgey gives the two inexperienced men a quick lesson in how to work the nets and gut fish and off they go.

When the men return with their catch three days later, they find the village has changed. The pier is busy, shops are open, there's a positive vibe in the air. That stench of depression has disappeared, as if they've docked at a different port.

To their disbelief, Nick and Liam find they've returned to the same place, but thirty years earlier, and they're now being mistaken as the two men who disappeared. Mr and Mrs Richards treat Nick as if he's their son Luke. Liam is taken in by Tina, whose daughter Jess is only a small child.

Jenkin zeroes in on Nick's confusion very much as a private ordeal. Nick finds his home empty, with no sign of Emily or his daughter, but nobody believes his bizarre story that he's really someone else. In contrast, Liam seems perfectly at ease with this strange turn of events because he's now in a better place. There's a sense that some people, including the skipper and Mr and Mrs Richards, might know more than they let on, but this suspicion is never developed further.

While Nick resists his new reality, Liam accepts the inexplicable. One man loses his wife and daughter, the other gains a wife and a daughter. In the end, Rose of Nevada does not attempt to offer any explanation for the mystery. The time-travelling enigma is but a conjecture to illustrate that a community withers when its industry is taken away.

Nick realises that the future of the people around him depends on this fishing boat. The Rose of Nevada holds the key to the future of a community. He can fight against the unknown or settle for the greater good. The impact of his decision goes beyond a simple wish to return to his own family. It's a story about making a hard choice. Life has no answer and it's not a test. When it takes a turn it simply asks: which path would you choose?

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