Final Rating: 3.5/5
In some ways James Ashcroft’s The Rule of Jenny Pen holds up a dark, funhouse mirror to recent octogenarian heist film Thelma. Both serve as reminders that the rich palate of experience we call life does not end at the threshold of a senior care home. However, where the titular Thelma churns out charm encased in pluck and spunk, Jenny Pen’s reign – where Mean Girls meets Gaslight, with lethal consequences – reflects the stomach-twisting reality of humanity’s darkest and weakest angles.
It’s unlikely that you had John Lithgow with an eyeless babydoll on your Bingo card as a top contender for villain of the year, but his embodiment of nursing home terrorist Dave Crealy is undeniable – faux Kiwi accent and all. Geoffrey Rush’s Stefan Mortensen, a former judge whose stroke-addled body can no longer keep up with his sharp mind, has likewise garnered deserved praise for a turn full of frustrated nuances. But this is actually a tale of four remarkable performances: Lithgow’s dark turn, with that Jenny Pen puppet ever-attached to his arm, and Rush’s reluctant “hero” aside, the driving heart of the story is the all-too-relatable blend of fear and pride wrapped up in homegrown actor George Henare’s well-aged former rugby star Tony Garfield.
The fourth star is cinematographer Matt Henly, with an assist from production designer Zahra Archer Minogue. The film is full of vivid, darkly lit colors, striking framing, and assured but varied use of the lens – from smooth, sweeping shots to jarringly off-center images. The claustrophobic camerawork with careful attention to depth of field is paired with precise sound mixing that immerses you in Judge Mortensen’s subjective experience. Inventive angles of view make you feel the loneliness of the dingy corners of this building, the topsy-turviness of the lives lived within, and the beautiful dangers outside that form the barrier to freedom.
This is surreptitiously a prison film, full of prison politics. One that also plays like an allegory of our current political moment. The film establishes a rhythm of terror, hypnotizing the viewer as much as the subject – a reflection of the way societies can be overwhelmed into submission. It’s ultimately a tale of why bullies so often get away with their bad behavior, and why their tormentees too often place public perception over personal safety.
Ashcroft’s second feature is also his second adaptation of a short story by fellow New Zealander Owen Marshall, after Home in the Dark (2021). The original “The Rule of Jenny Pen” is a relatively breezy twenty-page read found in Marshall’s curated collection of Essential New Zealand Short Stories (2002). Ashcroft’s script, like the prior adaptation again written with Eli Kent, expands from that premise. Firstly, flipping the perspective from primarily the abuser to primarily the victim(s), and inventing many of the film’s most memorable moments – such as an early surprise immolation – along the way.
The additional story elements, including a couple moments of genuine action, do indeed add flesh to the original story’s chilling bones. The doll used as a tool of terror has morphed into something that feels right: a therapeutic aid doled out to a patient who fakes mental simplicity. An object intended to heal used instead to inflict harm. From one perspective just as undeniably innocent as it is evil from another.
But this change robs rugby champ Garfield’s torment of an additional source of horror: the original story’s mechanism of menace is a doll crafted for him by his own granddaughter, adding an extra perversity to Crealy’s grotesque misuse. On the other hand, replacing the short story staff’s sneaking suspicions of the troublesome Creely with the relative trust their film counterparts show a malevolent man smart enough to play stupid adds a different, more relatable chilling layer of existential dread.
Stretched to a 1h43 runtime, the tale’s incessant mean-spiritedness can become wearing, leaving you time to ask questions. Such as: Why does there seem to be zero video surveillance in this home? And: Would this have been better as a 40-minute short?
Thank you to IFC Films and Brigade Marketing for the screener.
