Fishing movies are basically boxing movies for jobs. It’s never just about the fishing. It’s really covering up some sort of allegory about how to live live or do something else. Rose of Nevada further cements the point, as Mark Jenkin’s movie turns Cornwall into his haven for transcendental genuflection through learning how to gut a fish. Remember, mouth, to ahole. Repeat.
Mike (Edward Roe) and Tina (Rosalind Eleazar) are perplexed and horrified. In their tiny little Cornwall town, the Rose of Nevada returns to port, on its own, without any crew onboard. The town is struggling: people like Nick (George MacKay) have to depend on local community soup kitchens to make ends meet, and still cracks in the ceiling threaten his little life with his wife (Mae Voogd) and kid (Emily Daglish-Laine). With nowhere else to turn and the town desperate for resurrection, Mike reluctantly commissions the Rose of Nevada to go out with a crew of 3: captain Murgey (Francis Magee), flirt/womanizer Liam (Callum Turner), and Nick, with nowhere else to go needing some cash for repairs.
For Rose of Nevada to work, writer/director Mark Jenkin needs to make the movie feel out of time. He uses every trick in the book to pull that off. He shoots the movie on film instead of digitally, making us feel like we’re watching a lost 1970s film, cleverly using burnt film as a scene transition. The setting of Cornwall feels like it hasn’t changed in thousands of years, making us lose track of days and time. The score gives the movie this unnerving unsettled energy that makes us confused and squeamish. The editing enhances that feeling, using clever setups to untether the characters and by extension, the audience. And the lead trio of Magee, Turner, and MacKay resemble and talk like characters we’d expect to be a part of a fishing tale: brooding and quiet like Turner/MacKay or a born sea captain like Magee, clearly descending from pirate ancestors.
The tricky part of telling a tale like this is the natural pitfall of slowing down too much. There’s a couple harrowing sequences that help up the tension a few times. But the movie needs to live in neutral to drive its point home, and unfortunately stays in that mode sometimes a bit too long. It would have been nice to see a more pronounced evolution of our lead characters to help land the paranoia of the situation. But I guess that when you’re in a small town in Cornwall, you play everything close to the vest. I certainly was more on edge than I wasn’t though, as those George MacKay closeups really drive home the surreal and otherworldly nightmare he’s found himself inside. All because he just wanted to fix a roof.
Here’s the best way I can describe the vibe of Rose of Nevada. It’s like Mark Jenkin was watching a Steven Spielberg retrospective with his class, watching his first two big hits. Light bulb goes off: why don’t I just combine their essences and film it in Cornwall? One big mistake you made though Mark: you couldn’t get a big Dua Lipa song over the credits? Callum Turner is right there, bro!