‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’ Movie Review: A Crazed John Lithgow Rules Geriatric Nightmare
Photo from IFC Films
From Jeremy Kibler
New Zealand writer-director James Ashcroft’s cruelly effective thriller Coming Home in the Dark (based on a short story by Owen Marshall) was like watching all of the light get sucked out of the day and getting plunged into the darkness. The Rule of Jenny Pen, Ashcroft’s sophomore feature film also based on one of Marshall’s short stories, is unpleasant in a different way: getting old in a nursing home is exacerbated when being menaced by a wildly creepy John Lithgow. This wickedly oddball horror drama about grumpy old men is uncomfortable on purpose and eventually a bit tiresome, but it’s ultimately held together by the committed performances of two veteran actors.
Geoffrey Rush, a terrific foil to Lithgow, plays Stefan Mortensen, a judgmental Aussie judge who suffers a stroke and gets sent to a nursing home, Royal Pine Mews Care Home. One of the longtime residents, Dave Crealy (Lithgow), is a seemingly harmless kook who wields a babydoll puppet, Jenny Pen, on his hand. In actuality, he terrorizes the residents at night, and Judge Mortensen might have to be the first to say something, if the staff even believes him. Everyone is under Dave and Jenny Pen’s thumb.
Rush gets to play Stefan as stern and then helpless, a former judge now watching others be tortured and no longer having a say; it’s a very physical performance, not only from being bound to a wheelchair but losing the ability to speak. Watching Rush persevere as Stefan and finally outsmart Lithgow’s Dave becomes quite cathartic by the end. As unassuming bully Dave Crealy (even without the babydoll puppet), Lithgow is truly unnerving and vile. What he does with a catheter will make men squirm. It’s always a treat to watch Lithgow get to be deliciously psychotic (Blow Out, Ricochet, Raising Cain, Cliffhanger, and even Shrek), and this showy turn is an unforgettably juicy one.
Ashcroft nails the depressing mundanity with one location that confines his characters, but he also offers up surreal moments involving the ominous Jenny Pen. It almost seems like the point, but in order for most of the plot to work, we have to just accept that Dave Crealy practically runs the show. Through a trail of breadcrumbs that Stefan finds (read: staff photos), Dave used to be a member of the staff at the facility for many, many years, so perhaps that’s another reason he gets carte blanche. If not, the night staff is either nonexistent or just irresponsible, and apparently no security cameras exist on these grounds when they need to catch Dave doing his deeds. These kinds of contrivances are nothing new in a turn-of-the-screw tale, but the continual strain on credibility gets frustrating after a while.
The film taps into the idea of not having your voice heard as you age and your health worsens, and that alone is horrifying before Dave Crealy and Jenny Pen even enter the picture. Director Ashcroft and co-writer Eli Kent’s script, however, keeps advancing Dave Crealy as a terror, only to then spin its wheels and feel a little too pointlessly mean-spirited. The Rule of Jenny Pen feels a little undercooked on a narrative level, but as an aging nightmare, it is the unsettling push-pull escalation between Lithgow and Rush that gives it fuel.
Rating: 2.5/5
The Rule of Jenny Pen is currently in theaters.
