A ghostly story that’s not exactly a ghost story, Rose of Nevada is a typically imaginative film from the director Mark Jenkin. But here he has recognizable actors and a much more pronounced narrative than in his last feature, the thoroughly enigmatic Enys Men (2022). That’s not to say the plot is straightforward. It loops back on itself more than once, and this is essentially a film of existential questions wrapped in elegant images and a haunted atmosphere.

It is also an eerie time-travel film that benefits greatly from its compelling, down-to-earth performance from George MacKay (1917 and The Beast). He anchors the film in reality as Nick, a local whose fishing village in Cornwall is crumbling. He gets groceries from a food bank and the roof is leaking on his wife and young daughter. Callum Turner (The Boys in the Boat) is Liam, a stranger who drifts into that town, with no place to sleep and no money.

And on the shore, a small fishing boat called the Rose of Nevada that was lost at sea 30 years before has floated back. Two men disappeared along with it. One was the husband of Tina (Rosalind Eleazar), the mother of two grown daughters with no memory of their father. The other was the son of Nick’s neighbors, the Richards (Mary Woodvine and Adrian Rawlins). Mrs. Richards, aged and confused, insists to Nick, “My boy’s coming home.” Her ravaged look, with long white hair, and her seer-like pronouncement is a carefully placed hint that there will be supernatural touches ahead. (Jenkin himself seems haunted by lost fishermen, who appear in each of his three features so far.)

From the start, Jenkin combines his typical imagistic style with the story of Nick and Liam, who go out with the skipper of the recovered boat as fishermen. The film opens with a string of shots made to look as if they are on scratchy old film, with close-ups of rusted chains and broken wood, which we come to realize later is the rotting old boat.

But where Enys Men — the story of a woman alone on an island who sees visions from previous centuries — is a series of scenes without much forward momentum, Rose of Nevada has compelling elements of suspense. As Nick heads out to sea, he finds a warning carved on the wall of his bunk: Get Off the Boat Now. And when they come back to shore, Nick and Liam find themselves in 1993. The town seems to be flourishing, with the once run-down bar now crowded and bursting with life. The food bank Nick visited is a post office. Whether the men are lost in the past forever or can return to the present by going out to sea again is the question they’ll have to test.  

MacKay gives Nick a haunted look from the very start, not surprising for a man struggling to feed his family. The time-traveling retrospectively suggests there may be more behind that expression, but the performance is especially moving because MacKay never winks at any other possibilities in the earlier scenes. Nick’s confusion when he lands in the past is painful, and so is his desperate wish to get back to his wife and daughter. Turner has less to work with as the stranger whose history we don’t know, and too often Liam seems blank, but the character becomes more intriguing in the 1993 scenes. Eleazar is smooth in both time frames, in a performance that smartly keeps us guessing at how much Tina knows or wants to know.

A photograph of the two men who were lost is a recurring image, sometimes an actual photo in houses in the present day, at times simply on screen. What really happened to them? Nick wakes from dreams, which may be memories. The ambiguity is deliberate as the film raises questions of identity and of family connections.

Although Jenkin’s style of focusing on images rather than story is lessened, it is still prominent — and sometimes an awkward fit with the narrative. There are far too many shots of fish being hauled in, being gutted, and just staring at us from a bed of ice. But the style itself is impressive. Jenkin is almost a one-man crew, as writer, director, cinematographer and editor. He also designed the sound, a major element here, with thumping and ticking and an unnerving note of music just held in the air. Like Mrs. Richards’ appearance, the soundscape adds a tinge of the supernatural without indulging in horror tropes. And the images themselves, such as the bright and boldly colored shot of the boat out at sea, are elegant compositions even when they don’t mesh well enough with the narrative.

Jenkin has said in a director’s statement that his film is concerned with “personal sacrifice, the power of community, and what it means to be part of society today.” Those themes don’t always register, but that shouldn’t matter because his eloquent artistry always invites interpretation.