ROSE OF NEVADA – a film by Mark Jenkin – SPOILERS ⁓
Mike
A small red boat drifts to shore near a Cornish fishing village that has seen better days. The deserted vessel is first spotted by Mike (Edward Rowe), who then consults with Tina (Rosalind Eleazar). “I know it’s hard,” he tells her, “but we’ve gotta decide what to do.” Then he asks: “We gonna try again?” Tina says: “Who’s gonna crew? There ent no one left here Mike.”
Tina
On his way home with groceries, Nick Dwyer (George Mackay) sees Mrs. Richards (Mary Woodvine) standing in the rain in her nightgown. He and Emily Carroll (Mae Voogd) get her inside. (Nick and Emily live at number 6 with Emily’s young daughter. The Richards live next door.) Nick notices a leak in his roof and climbs up to fix it, but falls through into his kitchen instead. This will prompt him to sign on as deskhand on the recently arrived ghost ship.
Mrs. Richards looks out her window. “See y’soon m’darling’,” she says.
“Hark! My son’s comin home,” says Mrs. Richards, and her husband (Adrian Rawlins) explains: “She d’get the past and present mixed up.” He picks up an old photo in a frame and continues. “They caught some fish that day. Different place this was back then. Harbour full of boats, trucks, men. Fulla life. Three year Luke as on that boat. He never went again. Guilt’s hard shadow to live under.” Later events will suggest that Mrs. Richards’ ability to mix up time might extend beyond her own perceptions.
MIke takes down a picture on the wall of the mystery ship’s cabin, then picks up a pink cap which he delivers to Jess (Yana Emily Penrose), saying the cap belonged to her father.
Tina and Jess watch David Cronenberg’s “The Dead Zone”, a 1983 film about a man who wakes from a coma and discovers he has the ability to predict, and alter, future events. “No snow. Should be snow for Christmas,” says one of the film’s characters.
Murgey
On his way to work, Nick runs into Mrs. Richardson again, and the old woman tells him: “That boat was lost. You remember. She went down short-handed, didn’t she? You let em down. You never forgiv’d y’self. My beautiful boy. Don’t do it to us again. Me and your dad can’t go through it again.”
At the local pub, Jess flirts with the boat’s other deckhand Liam (Callum Turner), and gives him her father’s pink cap.
The boat is called “The Rose of Nevada”. (“Nevada” is the Spanish word for snowfall.) Mike deep-sixes its nameplate, but that will reappear later. Captain Murgey (Francis Magee) and his crew cast their nets for the first time under a full moon, and Murgey starts to sing the traditional Cornish folk song “An Rosen Wynn” (The White Rose)
“Mar hweg deg del dyv hi
An rosen wynn
Mar splann mar vryntin
A dhre dha gov omma dhe-vy
Kynsa pan welis ow hwegol
Yth es ta mar deg avel ros
Mes lemmyn mar dhisliw dha vejeth
Mar wynn avel rosen mayth os
My ‘gar an rosen wynn
Mar hweg, mar deg del dyv hi
An rosen wynn
Mar splann mar vryntin
A dhre dha gov omma dhe-vy”
In English:
“If sweet the coming of the leaf to her
The white rose
So bright so morning-like
That brings your memory here to me
First when I saw my sweetheart
You were as beautiful as a rose
But now so faded is your face
As white as a rose that you are
I love the white rose
So sweet, so beautiful as grows she
The white rose
So bright so morning-like
That brings your memory here to me”
Little Jess
The boat returns with a hold full of fish to a harbour filled with boats, trucks, and men.
Jess and her daughter confront Liam and ask for the housekeeping money. He tells them he hasn’t been paid yet, and gives Little Jess (Aria Balliah-Quinn) his pink cap.
Nick tries to go home and finds the place where he lived vacant and up for sale. He encounters Mr. Richardson who calls him Luke. When he asks what’s going on, Mike (who is somehow in the vicinity) helps shove Nick inside. On a table is a newspaper dated 13 August 1993. Mrs. Richardson calls him Luke and Nick tells them: “Luke’s dead. He jumped off Lurgan ‘ed. My name’s Nick Dyer. I was born in 1996. You gave me the job three days ago.”
Mr. Richardson tells Nick: “Luke, y’bin on the boat three year, boy.”
Mr. and Mrs. Richards
Reluctant to give up on getting back to the future, Nick tries to mail money to Emily, but the envelope is returned to him. Liam on the other hand readily adapts to his new situation. He is mildly uncomfortable about being with Jess because she thinks he’s her dead husband Alan, but Jess seems unconcerned about all that, and they watch an energy conservation video (Helping the Earth – Cry) on television.
Liam is late for sailing one day because Jess has morning sickness. Nick visits the cliff from which Luke jumped, and where Mr. Richardson regularly places red carnations. Nick does not jump.
Conclusions and Commentary
Murgey is very likely the same man who was the captain of the ship that went down in 1993 because she sailed shorthanded because Mrs. Richardson’s son Luke didn’t show up. So Murgey must have survived the sinking. Alan was also on that boat and did not survive. Liam is meant to replace Alan, and Nick is meant to replace Luke. It is never stated explicitly, but there are more than a few indications that both Luke and Alan were involved with each other, as are Liam and Nick.
It might be that Luke’s mother saw her son in Nick, subconsciously willed him into that identity, and dragged Nick’s sometimes lover into the time warp with him. In this revised reality, Nick’s desires come into conflict with those of the old woman, but her will is stronger.
Liam and Nick
Writer/director Mark Jenkin told Oscar Trinik of Moviemarker: “My favourite scene in the film is probably where George’s character [Nick] has just done the washing up, he’s standing in the kitchen door, and he’s looking at his wife who’s sat in the front room playing with their daughter, and he just looks at her neck. It says so much about a character; all of these things that are not dialogue, and not faces.” Jenkin agrees with Trinik that the 2012 documentary “Leviathan” is in some ways similar to Rose of Nevada. “I hadn’t thought of that as a reference, but it certainly is.” he explains. “With Leviathan, it’s almost like you’re seeing the horror of the fishing from the point of view of the fish, whereas in Rose of Nevada, you’re seeing the horror of the fishing from the point of view of two deckhands.”