BosenaThe phrase “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore” could apply exclusively to Mark Jenkin. The filmmaker wears plenty of hats, thanks entirely to his commitment to shoot on 16mm: Jenkin uses a wind-up camera called a Bolex, which delivers stunning imagery but doesn’t pick up any sound whatsoever. That means everything you hear in his films — like the clap of thunder during a storm or the sloshing of waves against the hull of a boat; even his characters’ dialogue — is added in post-production, with Jenkin taking on the role of sound designer alongside directing, writing, and lensing his film. It’s a laborious process, but films like Bait and Enys Men each proved its potency long before Jenkin’s third feature, Rose of Nevada. That said, the director’s latest might also be his most accessible, thanks to a simple (but no less engrossing) story and the two rising stars at its center. A hypnotizing time-loop thriller with a subdued emotional core, Rose of Nevada feels like a lost episode of The Twilight Zone spliced with the pastoral stylings of The Wicker Man. Lovingly rendered in Jenkin’s experimental style, it marches to the beat of a forgotten memory, luring the unsuspecting into a lost world.Rose of Nevada is quieter and more plot-driven than Jenkin’s last film: where Enys Men was a frantic exercise in solitude and madness, the filmmaker’s latest leans into the interpersonal, using the supernatural to brush up against themes of grief and displacement. His sound work is seamless, but even so, it’s his camera that does the talking initially, presenting us with images of rotting wood and chains caked in neon-orange rust. All those close-up shots together paint a picture of the titular boat, which appears in the harbor of a run-down, unnamed fishing village after 30 years lost at sea. The return of the Rose means everything to the citizens of this village, who’ve fallen on hard times for one reason or another. But it signals something stranger for those who remember its disappearance, like the frigid Tina (Rosalind Eleazar). Her husband was one of the fishermen who likely perished out at sea, leaving her to raise two now-grown daughters alone. Then, there are the Richards (Adrian Rawlins and Mary Woodvine), whose son also disappeared. That loss has more than taken its toll on Mrs. Richards: her husband claims that she “gets past and present confused,” particularly when it comes to their neighbor, Nick (George MacKay). BosenaNick bears a passing resemblance to Mrs. Richards’ late son, which makes his choice to join the new crew of the Rose — alongside swaggering drifter Liam (Callum Turner) and their skipper, the seasoned sailor Murgey (Francis Magee) — eerily ironic. A sense of dread already hangs over their journey; the fear of history repeating itself in some way or form feels like a foregone conclusion. Only Mrs. Richards seems optimistic about their trek. “My boy’s coming home,” she tells Nick before he ships off. Her stringy white hair and vacant stare fashion her into something more than the town’s resident Weird Woman: she may conflate her past and present, but she also seems to know the true nature of the Rose better than anyone else.The Rose’s new expedition begins without much of a hitch, aside from the ominous message (“GET OFF THE BOAT NOW”) that Nick discovers early on. Our trio catches plenty of fish, enough to put their village back on the map. But when they sail back into harbor, the town is much different than the one they left behind. That’s because they’ve somehow been transported back in time to 1993, the same year the Rose first disappeared. And to make matters even stranger, everyone thinks that Nick and Liam are the missing crew. The Richards welcome Nick back home with open arms, while Tina disparages Liam for leaving her to care for their infant daughter without any help. It’s the kind of twist that should weird anyone else — especially Liam, since he flirted with the same girl who now calls him “dad” just before shipping out — but only Nick seems flummoxed by their reversal of fortune. As Liam slides seamlessly into a life that isn’t his, Nick alone resists. He quickly becomes the vessel through which Jenkin can push his analog aesthetic to its limits, crafting sparse, heady nightmares that aren’t easily forgotten. Both MacKay and Turner lend plenty of emotional depth to a film that could have held us at arm’s length, but the former is unmistakably Rose’s focal point. MacKay is a fascinating performer in any format; his gonzo physical performances in hidden gems like Wolf, The Beast, and True History of the Kelly Gang have long established him as one to watch. Rose, by contrast, demands stillness from the actor, with Jenkin focused simply on the plane of his face: the slope of his cheek, the fiery indignation in his eyes as he straddles denial and acceptance. Jenkin is likewise fascinated by mundane objects, and it doesn’t hurt that his camera, pointed anywhere, renders something as basic as an ice bucket full of fish into something truly arresting.Those simple images are just as evocative as any wild dream sequence Jenkin crafts elsewhere. As dialogue in his films is sparse (and rightly so, as the cast has to re-record all their lines after filming), we learn more from what isn’t said. The unspoken haunts every frame of Rose of Nevada, from the supernatural power that transports our heroes back in time, to the chances of them returning home. Whether the answers will ever come is a part of the film’s hypnotizing charm: you can fight the pull of the tide, or you can sit back and let Jenkin’s story unfold on its own terms.Rose of Nevada premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.