The Rose of Nevada is a 2025 British science-fiction drama film written, edited, composed and directed by Mark Jenkin. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last August and was released in the UK on 24 April.

Now this is a tricky one to write because I understand that a lot of people will really like this film, however for me it just doesn’t work. To start with, they call it sci-fi but it isn’t really – it is more like a ghost story. And I should come clean and admit that whilst I am not generally a big fan of science-fiction, I positively loathe ghost stories. Except those that are intended to make me laugh, I suppose. So, what is it about?

In a near-deserted Cornish fishing village, a fishing boat, The Rose of Nevada, reappears in the harbour three decades after the vessel and its crew fell victim to the sea. That loss is still felt deeply; this small community never really recovered from the tragedy.

The boat’s owner, Mike (Edward Rowe), sets about rounding up a crew for a new fishing expedition. He recruits a grizzly old captain, Murgey (Francis Magee); a young father struggling for money, Nick (George MacKay); and Liam (Callum Turner), an itinerant worker who sleeps rough on the dock. They set sail on their new fishing expedition and when they return to port they have returned to thirty years previously. The two youngsters, Nick and Liam, seem rather confused by this, although weirdly the captain seems none too bothered. Everyone at the port is, of course, thirty years younger than when we first saw them. Nick and Liam try to negotiate the village they never knew, but have heard lots about.

Each new expedition brings with it the possibility that, basically, when they return it might be now, but it might be then. It is full of the past echoing the present and all very ghostly, but without any purpose. And it is all very beautifully shot, there are some great fishing scenes, but quite honestly, I couldn’t see the point. I would have liked to have got to know the characters more and understood some kind of reality and meaning to their story, but that didn’t happen, perhaps because there was none.

The Rose of Nevada is basically a ghost story, and I don’t really like ghost stories – my suspension of disbelief just does not go as far as ghosts.