‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’ Review
Stars: John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush, George Henare | Written by James Ashcroft, Eli Kent | Directed by James Ashcroft
Directed by James Ashcroft, chilling care home horror The Rule of Jenny Pen is adapted from a story by New Zealand author Owen Marshall. Co-written by Ashcroft and Eli Kent, it’s a terrifying tale of bullying and elder abuse that’s all the more frightening for its plausibility.
Geoffrey Rush stars as Stefan Mortensen, an elderly, cantankerous judge who has a devastating stroke while passing a verdict and ends up half-paralysed and confined to a care home. Already infuriated by having to share a room with former rugby star Tony Garfield (George Henare), Stefan’s problems only get worse when they are both terrorised by long-term patient Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), who is never seen without a baby-faced, hollow-eyed therapy puppet on his hand, named Jenny Pen.
Unfortunately, no one in the care home will take Stefan’s complaints seriously, in part because Dave is seemingly quiet and well-behaved when he’s not in their rooms at night, demanding they submit to Jenny in a particularly unpleasant way. Worse still, Tony is so terrified of Dave that he won’t back up Stefan’s protestations, and when Stefan tries to intervene in a particularly nasty bit of bullying, he ends up being blamed for causing his own violent incident.
Ashcroft, who’s also a New Zealander, does a terrific job of building and escalating tension throughout The Rule of Jenny Pen, beginning with small details, like the moment of dread when Stefan first brings himself to Dave’s attention. He also creates a powerfully claustrophobic atmosphere, with the action never leaving the grounds of the care home, and Stefan’s powerlessness is further accentuated by having him confined to a wheelchair because of his stroke.
The script taps into several real-life fears, not just workplace bullying and abuse, but also the horror of not being listened to when you’re telling the truth, and deeper terrors related to getting old, like the loss of bodily functions or the slow descent into dementia. To that end, though it is played as a horror and the script does eventually take a more genre-friendly turn, the film is arguably all the more effective the closer it sticks to painful realism.
On that note, there is a tiny hint that there may be a touch of the supernatural to Jenny Pen herself, though thankfully the script has enough sense to leave that as a note of ambiguity. Similarly, there is the faint suggestion that Dave is actually terrorising the entire hospital (or at least, several more characters than we’re aware of), and the script shows commendable restraint in leaving that aspect unclarified.
Rush and Lithgow are both terrific in the lead roles, with Rush making some intriguing decisions, in that Stefan isn’t an especially likeable character. That works well in the early stages when he’s complaining all the time and the staff basically take no notice. As for Lithgow, he’s genuinely chilling, and the script keeps you guessing as to whether he’s possessed, genuinely insane or just a calculating bully relieving his own boredom after years in the care home.
To sum up, The Rule of Jenny Pen is a superbly directed, sharply written and brilliantly acted care home horror that’s all the more terrifying for being rooted in reality. It also marks out Ashcroft as a genre talent to watch.
**** 4/5
The Rule of Jenny Pen is in UK and Irish cinemas from today, March 14th.
