When recommended a beach-read by a roommate he doesn’t want, the academic Judge Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush) scoffs, “All those books say the same thing.”
10 years after Julianne Moore won her Oscar for “Still Alice,” moviegoers could argue something similar about an indie drama casting an elite actor as a dementia patient in rapid decline. Those audiences will be the least prepared for “The Rule of Jenny Pen” and may feel its singular wrath stronger than most. That’s an enviable position to be in for one of recent memory’s more unusual thrillers — even if its lack of narrative convention veers more vexing in the end.
Directed by James Ashcroft, this punishing dark genre blend recently acquired by Shudder forces a marriage between the psychological eldercare drama you think you know and a toxically masculine “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” The script is co-written by the filmmaker and Eli Kent, who together adapted a short story by Owen Marshall. When our flawed hero collapses at his judge’s bench (right in the middle of condemning a pedophile too!), Stefan must leave court to cope with the aftermath of a devastating stroke.
The aging legal scholar brings plenty of classic literature and his own erudite monologues with him to assisted living — a place Stefan swears he won’t be for long — but not even Hemingway himself could be stoic about the hell lurking inside Royale Pine Mews. Most of Stefan’s plight can be attributed to one unfathomable patient, the slippery and strange Dave Crealy (John Lithgow). His cloudy blue eyes peek around a corner early, but they hide secrets that won’t be clear to Stefan until much later.
Boasting many of the same geriatric terrors you’ll recognize from other films (“The Front Room,” anyone?), the “Jenny Pen” world is nightmarish from the start. Brimful urine bags, acoustic guitar sing-a-longs, and various chin dribbles assault the curmudgeonly Stefan upon his arrival. Being in “a home” would be bad enough — but sharing a room with ex-rugby star Tony (George Henare) and artifacts from the kind of loving family Stefan doesn’t have? That’s just torture. (The lonely newcomer also witnesses an accidental death in Act One that’s mostly a red herring, but also serves as a genius shock to his system and the film’s establishing tone.)
Despite considerable assets, no amount of money can save the judge from humiliating interactions with condescending staff and the deteriorating people they manage. Editor Gretchen Peterson makes a meal of these early scenes with some especially sharp audio. Anxiety builds exquisitely as the eruptive laughter of more childlike residents collides with Stefan’s failed attempts to regain control of his right side in physical therapy. Clatter. Laugh. Clatter. Laugh. Clatter. Laugh. You’ll want Stefan to pick up a plastic cup almost as much as he does…if only because it will make that looping stop.
The subject matter is no doubt horrifying, but “The Rule of Jenny Pen” doesn’t approach proper horror genre status until the arrival of its antagonist and the titular Jenny Pen. That’s the name of the baby doll puppet Dave wouldn’t be caught dead without while aimlessly shuffling around common areas. The seemingly absent-minded senior only occasionally uses his toy to talk to nurses, who are largely charmed by the mostly mute Dave and his silent doll. Still, there’s a malevolent feel to Jenny’s presence that looms large over the clinical community she does indeed control like a kingdom.
With vacant eyes and a colorless cloth body, Jenny is the ideal object for emotional projection. In real life, that’s why therapy dolls exist: to provide company and comfort to their owners in whatever way they can. Used by Dave, however, Jenny isn’t so much a vestige for fading memory as she is a weapon for fresh malice. With both Lithgow and Rush fully committed to the twisted two-hander, how Dave reveals himself as an antagonist to Stefan is half the fun (assuming you’re comfortable calling elder abuse “fun”?) but you can know now: The namesake prop is 100 percent instrumental to that profoundly perverse effort.
Psychological thrillers are overrun with women trying to convince people they aren’t crazy. “The Rule of Jenny Pen” flips the script on that gendered dynamic by making Stefan proselytize Dave’s menacing behavior like he’s Mia Farrow talking about the devil in “Rosemary’s Baby.” Rush enjoys a wonderfully self-contradictory performance that’s equal parts desperate and ferocious. Summoning the bravado he once brought to “The Pirates of the Caribbean” films, the renowned theater actor sells each and every one of Stefan’s zingers. Even as his faculties worsen and his speech slurs, the earnestly funny dressings down continue to impressive and unsettling effect. The difficult performance is well-supported with a semi-surreal style and an off-balance pace that helps Rush convey the layered idea… but only to a point.
Stuck in a place with some privacy but never enough privacy, Stefan begins a covert investigation into Dave’s bizarre motives and past by searching through the facility where they live. The setting is constrained enough that “The Rule of Jenny Pen” should be more exacting, but a little too much Lithgow makes it a cautionary example of the “Jaws” rule working in reverse. Lithgow crushes (when doesn’t he?) and the metaphoric shark he plays is crafty and cruel enough to want to see the antagonist alone for a bit. Unfortunately, Dave’s overwritten origin story means not even the legendary actor can make up the scads of solo brooding sessions this bloated effort would be better without.
Even doing too much at times, “The Rule of Jenny Pen” barely scratches the surface on the serious questions Stefan presents about legacy, justice, death, and dying. That’s a consequence of his and Dave’s exhausting tug of war, which adds roommate Tony as a superfluous third player right when you think you’ve reached the climax. Running just 1 hour and 49 minutes, this fine film isn’t too long, but it could be good (maybe great!) at a shorter length. Several false endings and the use of time as a motif make matters worse, but in all fairness that can be traced to the source material as much as the script.
What begins as an atypical use of two beloved actors gets more messy than complex in “The Rule of Jenny Pen.” And yet, the undaunted director, Ashcroft, approaches his vision with palpable conviction. It’s that same sort of boldness we’ve seen delivered throughout his stars’ decade-spanning acting careers, as well as definitive proof that the filmmaker can manage big name talent. Sure, Stefan and Dave get vaguely lost in a convoluted plot, but you won’t be able to miss Rush, Lithgow, or the Jenny Pen. As far as genre icons go, she’s a scream queen already reigning — whether or not her movie rules.
Grade: B-
“The Rule of Jenny Pen” opened Fantastic Fest 2024 on September 19. It is expected to debut on Shudder in 2025.
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