Slice-of-life with a dash of sci-fi is basically film catnip for me, so when perusing the hundreds of films on offer at the Toronto Film Festival 2025, I was immediately drawn to the description of Rose of Nevada. Directed by Mark Jenkin, Rose of Nevada opens with a rusted, empty fishing boat appearing in the harbor of a wayward fishing village. The village is suffering both from the waning fishing trade that once kept its occupants fed and from the loss of several loved ones.
Several of the townspeople speak in hushed whispers about what to do about the Rose of Nevada’s mysterious reappearance, and they ultimately decide to set up a crew and send her back to sea. Nick (George MacKay) jumps at the chance for a paycheck to literally keep a dilapidated roof over his family’s head, while wanderer Liam (Callum Turner) appears from nowhere to take on the work. As Nick and Liam return from their first trip, they find themselves locked in a thriving version of the town from decades before, with new identities and new families.
What’s most prominent about Rose of Nevada is its aesthetic. Shot on 16mm with entirely post-dubbed sound, Rose of Nevada successfully conjures a late 80s/early 90s aesthetic. The audio hisses ever-so-slightly, like your favorite worn tape from when you were young, and the images on screen have a vibrant and tactile quality to them. Rose of Nevada’s technical craft is the perfect enhancement for a haunting ghost story, one that conveys the emptiness of being left behind while you’re still living.
MacKay and Turner are the perfect pairing here, each stoic and moody in very different ways, conveying very little through dialogue and much more through expression. Their quiet performances lend themselves to the mysterious, Twilight-Zone-esque mood wrapped around the bones of this soft and thoughtful mystery.
Jenkin said in the Q&A after the film that he sets his films in Cornwall because it’s what he knows. If this mastery of place and atmosphere is what he knows, I’m eager to go backwards to mine his works so far, and also anticipating what’s yet to come.