Critic Reviews

Seen from the vantage point of our hyper-digital 2020s, Jenkin isn’t just a stark outlier from the current media regime. He’s also among the very few working directors whose cinema feels both familiar and viscerally new.

It is an experience as moving as it is unnerving, and as the piercing screeching of iron rods announces the Rose of Nevada is to leave port once more, it is we the audience there to wave a pained goodbye, quietly stunned by the ethereal aura of Jenkin’s striking creation.

The richest, most enduring pleasures here are formal ones, beginning with the exacting still-life compositions and oily, vehement primary hues of Jenkins’ 16mm lensing, which can make a painterly subject of a maritime squall or a mustard-yellow wading boot.

From a perspective of pure atmosphere, this is arguably the most mesmerizing film of the year thus far.

A dreamy tale of loss and grief, death and resurrection, as well as a supernatural reverie about the mysterious relationship between the present and past—one in which the living are reborn as ghosts.

Rose of Nevada does not abandon or anonymize any of Jenkin’s hallmark quirks, and is thus unlikely to convert any agnostics. But for the faithful and the curious, here is a work of hypnotically accomplished form and legitimate depth.

While Jenkin’s story is tightly controlled, with little explanation as to how this time jump happened and almost no room for big emotions, his visual storytelling is deeply expressive.

A ghostly story that’s not exactly a ghost story, Rose of Nevada is a typically imaginative film from the director Mark Jenkin.

It’s another really bold and distinct statement from Jenkin.

It effectively combines familiar genre tropes with Jenkin’s unique visual style and a resonant message of community.