The Rule of Jenny Pen
Directed by James Ashcroft
Written by James Ashcroft, Eli Kent, Owen Marshall
Starring John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush, Nathaniel Lees
Rated R
Runtime: 1 hour and 43 minutes
Available in theaters March 7

by Kimberly L., Staff Writer

Disclaimer

When I first watched this film, I did not give much thought to Rush being cast as a judge in an abuse case and have since learned of the defamation suits he has filed in recent years regarding work-related sexual abuse claims brought against him in Australia. With this knowledge, I can no longer see the design of this role as anything but mean-spirited and misogynistic. Jenny Pen is not particularly friendly to women, although it is not much friendlier to anyone overall. A scene in which Crealy (John Lithgow) assaults an elderly woman in front of her incapacitated partner initially felt out of place but could be chalked up to casting further light on Crealy’s cruelty. Now, it feels cutting. I can only hope the New Zealand based director was unaware of these claims when crafting an otherwise highly insensitive backstory to the character most closely aligned as a protagonist. 

 If I haven’t soured the film for you yet, it’s worth noting in this depressing comparison of reality to the film, that Lithgow has signed on to play Professor Dumbledore in a TV adaptation of Harry Potter that is still associated with the transphobic real-life villain JK Rowling. We can only hope Lithgow walks away. As much as I can try to separate art from artist when I must, two leads with very current and egregious storylines happening in their real lives needs to be considered. 

Review

The Rule of Jenny Pen premiered at Fantastic Fest 2024 and it was my first watch for that September week in Austin. Six months later, before watching the film again to write this review, the performances of the two leads played by Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow still haunted me. A scene where a helpless Rush thrashes for his life, sinking in a dimly lit bathtub, Lithgow’s unsettlingly blue irises glowing against the contorted and tanned cheeks above his snarled grin, and the unnervingly enlarged and disembodied babydoll head whose empty eye sockets peered eternally into blackness lingered with me through the entire fest and the months following. Two septuagenarian actors known equally for their ability to portray good and evil are set at odds in one of the darker psychological thrillers in recent years. 

Movies that can transpose a new discomfort onto already uneasy settings become instantly memorable, and The Rule of Jenny Pen is an extreme example. Geriatric care is a completely normal part of life that very few people allow themselves to think about until they are living it vicariously through a relative or first hand when their time comes. The general uneasiness of an already avoided subject matter is amplified within minutes of the film’s start. Rush’s character Stefan Mortensen has recently fallen ill after a lifelong career as a powerful and foreboding judge in New Zealand and is assigned care in a countryside nursing rehabilitation center. After a rocky acclimation to the institution, one reminiscent of a sprawling countryside estate, Mortensen is introduced to an onslaught of social shocks detrimental to his nervous system. 

Within minutes of our introduction to the facility, Judge Mortensen attempts to calm his nerves by bumming a cigarette from a fellow patient confined to a wheelchair. A freak accident results in the smoker self-immolating and burning to death before Mortensen’s eyes. This considerably grand display of chaos waves goodbye to any accidental trauma and sets the mood for the rest of the film. Lithgow prances into the film like a rabid husky with all the accompanying enthusiasm and destructive energy he can muster. His portrayal of fellow patient David Crealy should go down as one of Lithgow’s most memorable villains, and, even in his late seventies in this senior living setting, Crealy may also be Lithgow at his most lively. 

Jenny Pen’s on screen horror strikes in crescendos spearheaded by the film’s titular ruler Jenny Pen, a soft-bodied, eyeless babydoll worn on Lithgow’s hand as a haunting sock puppet. He torments fellow patients, sometimes beating them, tampering with their belongings, or intentionally misdirecting them to create mistrust between both the victim and the establishment’s staff with whom he has longstanding history that is later revealed. Rush’s Mortensen is in the simplest form a civilized and intellectual curmudgeon whose humanity is slowly taken from him by Crealy’s torment.

Mortensen copes with the loss of his independence and his anxiety from Crealy’s repeated assaults by reciting classical poetry, a habit that initially irritates his roommate Sonny Ausage (Nathaniel Lees). Ausage is a regular victim of Crealy’s, though the attacks we see are less intense and pointed than those Crealy delivers on Mortensen. The sinister peaks of the film range from the most impish theatrics of Crealy dancing and singing, somehow both charming and terrifying those around him into submission, to the much more crude and sexually grotesque acts of forcing his targets to press their tongues to the backside of his babydoll idol before declaring her rule out loud.

Rush has played his share of villains and it’s nearly impossible to hear his particular flavor of thespian accent without picturing Captain Hector Barbossa in The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise or his take on Vincent Price’s character in the Dark Castle remake of House on Haunted Hill, and that association played into my interpretation of his role in Jenny Pen. Because of these psychological pre-associations and his character’s background as a member of the corrupt justice system, I resisted sympathy as a member of this fourth wall jury watching the story unfold. Mortensen is the ideal cranky old intellectual, very close to unlikable but helpless enough when stripped of his judicial robes to steal sympathy.

This is a small glimpse at the duality of casting deeply anchored in their offsetting with Lithgow as the hagsploitative villain on which the camera transfixes in contrast to the less fascinating Rush. Lithgow wears chaotic malevolence so well it actually does look good on him. He has played his share of psychopaths and generally violent antagonists, and Crealy’s quirks hearken in his particular type of madness to Lithgow’s earliest works in Brian De Palma’s crime thrillers Blow Out (1981) and Obsession (1976) with a mask of wit and poise that slips away over time.

The pacing of the film is framed by the cinematography that travels the hallways of the nursing home like a welcome tour for the facility. Although the set and wardrobe are informed by practicality of the environment, no detail is missed–the stark redness of Crealy’s Achilles’ Heel inhaler against the sterile blue backdrop, the resident cat that comes and goes like an angel of death (unharmed!), and the timelessly unappealing meals that accompany many state facilities all conjure a scene that would not suggest a particularly grand evil in an otherwise sad state, there is a sense of rot lurking in the sterility.

Jenny Pen is dark and painful to watch at times but also has the frivolity of a fairytale full of dimly lit humor shrouding raw terror. Rembrandt’s painting “Peasants Dancing in a Tavern” from 1659 shows the bliss and the horror of a stale life of repetition with shadows and dirty surroundings that are, even for a moment, shredded by lithe moments of human joy in dancing and camaraderie. Freezing a frame of the common room scenes in The Rule of Jenny Pen has a similar effect that is dissolved once the action resumes on the screen: horror masked behind the laughter of a madman. A unique display of unlikable people rooting for themselves makes an interesting watch from familiar faces if you can still stomach them.

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