Some films are wholly original. Rose of Nevada seems to want to believe it is original but it is not, and that is fine. Instead, it is a pastiche of tropes and prior work, from The Philadelphia Experiment to Ghost Ship and more. Shot on 16mm, the film has a deliberately sparse look, more documentary than feature narrative. This works both to its benefit and against it, but what works the most against this tantalizing failure is the way in which style over substance clashes combines with a lack of clear rules or consistency.
Courtesy 1-2 Special
The great George McKay, quietly wonderful in 1917, is given a truly thankless task here and acquits himself admirably. He simply is not given a whole lot to work with. As our point of view character, the film seems to forget that we need to get to know him and care about what happens, but the film is so busy going for mood or atmosphere in the introductory portion, that it neglects establishing person, place or time effectively. For a film about a group of men unstuck in time, this is a major problem.
What results is all dressing and little substance. The tricks are repeated too often without any clear delineation between the present and past other than dialogue. This is a film that could have shown rather than told told told. It would also have benefited from telling and showing how things work, at least a little, and then holding that. As a science fiction horror film, this work forgets that those genres demand rules and consistency in order to build connection with the audience, vibrancy and maintain interest.
Otherwise, you have what happens here, which is that things just sort of happen and there is no real reason for any of it. Other, perhaps, than to give some people a chance to stare into the distance and mouth lines without any real meaning. There is a bit of the 28 Days later aesthetic here, yet it does not replicate what Boyle achieved. Rather, you get speeches without consequence and conversations without meaning. That might, to be fair, be the point.
If indeed the film is about how one can feel lost in the present and pulled to the past, that would be one thing, but that is not how it comes off. Searching for deeper meaning here seems a foolish exercise. As such, what sort of a film is this?
It seems to belong to a genre of ghost film akin to Whistle and I’ll Come For You. This film has mood and atmosphere to spare. Had the characters been more interesting and the events followed any sort of consistent rules and procedures, we might have had something very special. Instead, we are left with a noble failure, an almost that should be studied in order to see exactly how not to “almost” make a great indie horror film. That may seem harsh, and many will doubtless love what is on offer here.
For a film to work properly it must have a sense of place, space, time and characters. Those characters need not be loveable or likeable but they ought to be interesting. The plot does not need to be thick but there needs to be a logic which is followed within the telling of the story, and this film only occasionally remembers one or two of these while forgetting the rest.
Courtesy 1-2 Special
It is a perfectly acceptable work, and if it were a student film rather than something funded with a major national grant, this would be awe inspiring in the same way THX was, but no. This director has done two other features. You can tell there is passion, and the cast has committed, but something important seems just out of reach.
Rose of Nevada is now playing in select theaters.
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