The Reel Review
Confined to a retirement home after a debilitating stroke, a cantankerous former judge finds himself in a battle against a psychopathic, long-term fellow resident who fakes dementia to manipulate the staff while using a hand puppet to torment and even kill other residents. Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow star in this psychological horror/thriller.
With clever camerawork, an interesting premise, trippy cinematography and two strong leads, The Rule of Jenny Pen had great potential to be a unique and interesting film. Instead the story is a dull exercise in tediousness, never quite threading the needle between the horrors and indignities of aging with the equally disturbing psychological horror. There is loneliness, monotony, physical and mental decline and gaslighting by the barely present and understaffed health care workers. But the feel-bad story from co-writer/director James Ashcroft (Coming Home in the Dark) is just too slow and frankly feels a bit exploitative.
Lithgow, sporting some hideous dental prosthetics, gleefully leans into his spiteful character’s wickedness. But even his and Rush’s performances can’t save this overlong and unscary film from itself as it limps to a predictable, albeit somewhat satisfying ending.
REEL FACTS
• The Rule of Jenny Pen is Geoffrey Rush’s first film in five years, after 2019’s Storm Boy.
• Owen Marshall, the New Zealand writer whose short story is the basis for the film, appears as an extra at the retirement home.
• The Rule of Jenny Pen was filmed on New Zealand’s North Island, in and around the cities of Taupō, Wellington and Lower Hutt.
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