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Seven years ago, we disagreed with the thrust of what Mark Jenkin’s Bait had to say about the world as it is and as it ought to be, but appreciated its expressive strength. It was a film with substance. You could grapple with it. Rose of Nevada broadly conveys the same messages, but, as they derive primarily from the film’s setting and less so its plot, is less forceful and argumentative about them, requiring us to accept them in shorthand and take them as read.
Fair enough, perhaps – why make the same film twice? – but the story to which Jenkin’s perspective is here allied is of little interest, and told with insufficient clarity, populated by dull, flat characters whose developments are poorly motivated – if at all. Jenkin is certainly a visual stylist, but he shows little instinct for effective storytelling or direction of actors here, and we question the response Rose of Nevada has received from other critics, which seems inexplicably universal in its positivity.
With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.
Eavesdropping at the Movies 