In 2021, when I was covering Sundance as Press, a small film entitled “Coming Home in the Dark” from New Zealand caught my eye. I watched this story based on an Owen Marshall short story and directed by James Ashcroft. It showed a family having a lovely time in a scenic pastoral setting in New Zealand, only to be taken prisoner by a pair of ruthless drifters. The husband is a schoolteacher and the two would like the father of the family to pay for something he did in his past. The ending might not have satisfied all of us, but the lead-up was brutal. I made a mental note to watch for its director (James Ashcroft) in the future.
It’s now the future. Here’s what Steven King (yes, THE Steven King) had to say about “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” which screened at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival. King tweets, “I watched one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s called The Rule Of Jenny Pen, and I urge you to watch it when it appears on Shudder. Geoffrey Rush stars, with John Lithgow as a geriatric psychopath with an evil hand puppet.”
“The Rule of Jenny Pen” premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, on September 19, 2024. The film won Best Director honors for James Ashcroft and Geoffrey Rush was named Best Actor. The storied pair (Lithgow and Rush) shared Best Actor honors at a film festival in Catalonia. The program synopsis says: “Confined to a secluded rest home and trapped within his stroke-ridden body, a former Judge must stop an elderly psychopath who employs a child’s puppet to abuse the home’s residents with deadly consequences.”
CAST
The two stars, Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow, are phenomenal actors. (They also have producer credits on the film.) Geoffrey Rush won the Oscar in 1997 for “Shine” and has been nominated three other times (1999, “Shakespeare in Love;” 2001- “Quills”; and 2011-“The King’s Speech”). He has won many other awards in many countries. Rush plays an elderly judge named Stefan Mortenson.
Opposite Rush is another World Class actor, John Lithgow. Lithgow has been nominated for Oscars twice, has won 6 of the 12 Emmys he was nominated for, has won 2 of the 5 Golden Globes for which he was nominated, has been nominated as Best Actor by the Screen Actors’ Guild 10 time (and won 3), has 2 Tonys and has been nominated for 4 Grammys. When you put these two in showcase performances, bad guy (Lithgow) versus the retired judge (Rush), the audience is in for a treat. The screenplay is based, once again, on an Owen Marshall short story and co-adapted by Ashcroft and Eli Kent.
PLOT
John Lithgow as Dave Crealey in “Jenny Pen Rules” (photo by Matt Henley,)
“The Rule of Jenny Pen” is a character study of both men. It opens with Judge Mortenson having a breakdown in his courtroom. He ends up in a wheelchair, semi-paralyzed, but still sharp as a tack. He’s now living at the Royal Pine Mews Care Home in New Zealand, housed in a double room with roommate, Tony Garfield (George Henare), who is a Maori native once known as Gunny Garfield on the rugby field. Stefan Mortenson is not very friendly. He is fond of breaking into quotes from Hemingway (“A Farewell to Arms”) or Shakespeare. Stefan hasn’t lost a step, mentally, but is fighting against the physical ravages of aging. Stefan’s going to need all of his intelligence to fight off the villain of the piece, Dave Crealey (John Lithgow). Dave Crealey has apparently spent his entire life either working at the nursing home or living in it.
Just as we wondered what motivated the men in Ashcroft’s first film to grab the schoolteacher’s family, we wonder why Dave dislikes Stefan, whom he had not met previously. We learn mid-movie that Stefan once came into a restaurant that Dave was in and, when he saw the then-powerful man, Dave said, “There’s a man who’s made something of himself. And what have I done?” So, the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy and Envy has Dave prejudiced against Stefan, just as he is prejudiced against the Maori people (Dave tells a tasteless joke that illustrates this.) The script also notes, “We all get what’s coming to us in the end.” Dave has gone off his rocker and wears a small plastic doll on his hand, puppet-like, a doll he calls Jenny Pen. And Jenny Pen rules—or else.
Stefan has a bit of a superiority complex, as he spent years on the bench dispensing rulings about others’ guilt or innocence. Stepping down from the podium of power is difficult. His intelligence and education is both a blessing and a curse, when he is forced to live amongst mental cases and among many who are experiencing severe mental decline. Stefan seems to have no family who inquire about his well-being. At one point, he muses, “When did I become this bitter, lazy, stupid, forgot-myself, gave-up-on-people in the worship of what? A podium?” Stefan lodges numerous complaints against his abuser, but he is now in the position of being treated as though HE is the problem. He doesn’t like that change of status one little bit. Since the maniacal Crealey keeps entering the room that Stefan shares with Tony late at night, Stefan tries to get the former rugby star to vouch for him. He wants Tony to testify that the threats and harassment are really occurring. But Mortenson has really not built up much of a favorable rating with the other residents, as he tends to do things like correct his roommate’s quotation, even thought it’s only slightly off. (“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”)
THE QUESTION
The Big Question is whether Stefan will give in to the constant barrage of annoying attacks that Dave Crealey launches. It’s a battle of wills. Dave kicks Stefan in his paralyzed shins under the table. He throws urine on Stefan in his bed after dark. Dave makes threats of worse to come. Through it all, Stefan urges Tony to step up and be brave and help him fight back. It’s quite a coup when Stefan finds a way to sneak into Dave’s room and empty his inhaler stash, which gives John Lithgow a fantastic near-death scene. Dave discovers that his inhalers don’t work at a point when he needs one badly. Kudos should also be extended to the cast members playing other residents of the home. Every single one of them rings true as authentic.
SOUND
There are several moments in the film when Lithgow either dances or sings. If Geoffrey Rush is quoting great literature, Lithgow as Dave Crealey is obnoxiously singing “Knees Up, Mother Brown” or dancing so rambunctiously on the small dance floor (while intentionally stomping on the feet of others) that the floor is soon empty. Tony even admits to having found a hidey-hole near the washing machines where he will sometimes lay low when he recognizes that Dave is on the rampage. Dave’s many years both working and living at the facility have given him superior knowledge of the entire nursing home system and he uses it to his advantage and the disadvantage of others.
John Gibson does the music and high-pitched screeching sounds add to the tension. Ashcroft described the sound technicians as “purists” and the sound adds much to the mosaic of the home, with sounds of other residents in distant hallways merging with high-pitched sounds that are as intense in ratcheting up tension as fingers on a blackboard. The cinematography by Matt Henley also serves the piece well, as he closes in on the faces of the 79-year-old Lithgow and the 73-year-old Rush and the other elderly residents of the home.
CONCLUSION
Chicago International Film Festival founder Michael Kutza. IPhoto by Connie Wilson).
Try to catch “Jenny Pen Rules” when it plays near you or on television. Steven King was right. It’s a real tour de force acting class which I enjoyed at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival, seated directly in front of festival founder Michael Kutza, who even had a chair down front staked out for himself with his name on it and was, this day, in it to catch this enjoyable thriller.