Review: The Rule of Jenny Pen

Heavy on the Punch, Short on the Judy

I don’t know how John Lithgow got away with the stuff he does in the New Zealand film THE RULE OF JENNY PEN. No... Let me clarify that: I don’t know how John Lithgow’s character gets away with the stuff he does in THE RULE OF JENNY PEN. I know how Lithgow gets away with his stuff – it’s why they pay him the big bucks to begin with. But how his character, Dave Crealy – a hulking bully who terrifies the night (and frequently day) hallways of an assisted living facility with his creepy, baby doll hand puppet Jenny Pen – continually succeeds in pulling off his atrocities, that’s a stumper.

Crealy isn’t the main protagonist of JENNY PEN. That’s Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), a judge who’s been incapacitated by a massive stroke and has been admitted to the facility until he recovers. Or at least that’s what he thinks – there are too many residents there who will swear that their discharge, or their relatives, or both are coming in the next week, even though they’ve been waiting for years. It isn’t long before Crealy is incorporating Stefan into his reign of terror, which includes urine baptisms and outright brutality (and, outside of the judge’s predicament, murder). Much as the judge struggles against his tormentor, a partially paralyzed body and a brain subject to temporal lapses aren’t exactly the tools that will help him overcome his predicament.

And if you’re wondering where the staff is amidst all this conspicuous cruelty, well, that’s a good question. Director James Ashcroft provides an explanation of a sort for the caretakers’ hands-off approach to Crealy – which I won’t reveal here – but even that doesn’t pass muster on close inspection.

This wouldn’t be as big a problem if Ashcroft had decided to take a metaphorical approach to his setting, a la One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Instead, he’s opted for a more grounded vision, with occasional lashings of surrealism sprinkled here and there. I understand what the director is going for: It's eminently disturbing watching the imposing brute – Lithgow stands at least a head taller than most of the rest of the cast – torment people enfeebled by age, who cannot defend themselves, who have no avenue of escape, and whose only vector for rescue are staffers who are just as likely to chalk their charge’s complaints up to the ravages of dementia as treat them as being in actual peril. But Crealy is so unrelenting in his crimes that it’s impossible to imagine that someone in charge wouldn’t have taken notice at some point and put an end to it.

The other problem with playing it this real is that it makes the film a distinctly unpleasant experience to sit through. Again, I get that that is exactly what Ashcroft is going for – we are getting a worst-case scenario for the day to day lives of those who have been warehoused so the rest of society can get on with its business. And the director does portray the terror with distinct skill, bringing in the occasional nightmarish vision – such as the sight of a room-filling Jenny Pen leering over Crealy’s shoulder – or granting a lyrical lilt to the sadist’s cruelty, as in a sequence where Crealy insinuates himself into a dance party, stepping on feet and elbowing participants in the neck.

THE RULE OF JENNY PEN is not just horror for horror’s sake, it’s got a point to make, and does it with estimable power. Whether you want to hang around once you’ve gotten the message is another question.