Grumpy Old 'Pen'

John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush play warring residents of an old age home in 'The Rule of Jenny Pen.'

James Ashcroft is the current reigning Sultan of Sadism. The New Zealand actor-turned-filmmaker’s directorial debut, 2021’s Coming Home in the Dark, was a nightmarish narrative about a man who, while in a position of authority, turned a blind eye to torture; when the victims of that torture come looking for vengeance, the man is subjected to similarly soul-destroying violence. Ashcroft’s just-released follow-up, The Rule of Jenny Pen, is… well… kind of about the same thing. The details are different, but the themes are identical: the powerful predator becomes the powerless prey, and a supremely unsettling game of cat-and-mouse ensues.

In the case of Jenny Pen - which, like Coming Home in the Dark, Ashcroft and Eli Kent adapted from a short story by Owen Marshall - the victimizer-turned-victim is Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), a judge whose cold heartedness is equal parts completely warranted and utterly appalling. While handing down a harsh sentencing, Stefan suffers a horrific stroke, and consequently finds himself confined to an assisted living facility. Stefan’s snobbishly combative nature alienates his new peers, including his former rugby star roommate, Tony (George Henare). Even worse, it puts him directly in the crosshairs of Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), a heinous bully who presides over his fellow residents with an iron grip - or, rather, a plastic one: Jenny Pen, a baby doll puppet he frequently uses as a surrogate for his vituperative behavior (Jenny has no eyes, which makes her seem more sinister, yes, but also serves as a symbol for being willfully blind to abuse). Attempting to fight back only worsens Stefan’s disquieting ordeal; the staff doesn’t believe his allegations, and so badly has he alienated Tony and the rest of the populace that they’re unwilling to join him and risk Dave’s wrath.

We may be accustomed to thinking of warring elderly men as the stuff of comedy, but The Rule of Jenny Pen is hardly Grumpy Old Men. Viewers looking for a likable character to which they can cling will surely drown in this sea of misery. The Rule of Jenny Pen isn’t nihilistic, exactly - in fact, it’s ultimately less grim than Coming Home in the Dark - but it’s certainly one of the more harrowing cinematic portrayals of elder abuse I can recall.

Coming Home in the Dark had a moral ambiguity which ultimately put the protagonists and antagonists on equal ground; it was a dramatic argument against two wrongs making a right (“There is a difference between doing something and letting it happen,” a character says in one of the movie’s most haunting scenes. “They live on the same street, though.”). Jenny Pen isn’t quite as complex; Stefan may be an imperious and antisocial, but he is, after all, sentencing rapists and murderers. When he dresses down a mother for failing to protect her children from their abuser, he’s blunt and insensitive, sure, but he’s also, y’know, right. So you don’t exactly feel like he’s due the punishment dispensed by Dave.

Dave, likewise, has no layers; his backstory, to what little degree it’s revealed, may explain his cruelty, but it doesn’t justify it. He is one of Lithgow’s most disturbing and despicable creations (which is truly saying something, given that he was once one of Brian De Palma’s repertory psychopaths). Lithgow can’t help but make Dave compelling, and even entertaining; in a just world, this time next year, the actor would certainly nab some awards nods. But unlike the creeps in Coming Home in the Dark, you won’t shed any tears for this bastard.

The story’s lack of ethical intricacy is part of the reason that Jenny Pen, as good as it is, is ultimately not as powerful as Coming Home in the Dark: it may give the audience nightmares, but it won’t leave them with much to chew on.

Jenny Pen’s other shortcoming is a somewhat redundant screenplay that loses momentum in its second half. Jenny Pen is only 15 minutes longer than Coming Home in the Dark, but you will feel that extra time. This is especially frustrating because it’s easy to see where the cuts could have gone; Ashcroft may have been too hesitant to kill his (plastic, eyeless) darlings.

Then again, it’s easy to see how Ashcroft perhaps fell in love with his material. He is inarguably an extremely talented filmmaker. Not only does he coax one of Lithgow’s most memorable modern performances (to say nothing of the excellent work by Rush and Henare), but the way he plays with sight and sound - often in the interest of making us understand, subjectively, how it would feel to suffer a stroke - is masterful. Ashcroft rules the audience the way Jenny Pen rules the old folks: with an iron fist. Be prepared to squirm and wince to the point of muscle soreness.