The Rule of Jenny Pen (John Lithgow) (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts | Getting old is terrifying - video Dailymotion

Film Brain

Two acting heavyweights, Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow, do battle in a care home in this unnerving horror film about bullying, but Film Brain wasn't quite sure if he liked the film for a while.

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00:00Geoffrey Rush faces off against a bullying John Lithgow and his puppet in the New Zealand horror film The Rule of Jenny Penn.

00:08Rush plays a judge who suffers a stroke and is admitted into a care home.

00:12There, he and his roommate George Henare are tormented during the night by John Lithgow,

00:16who feigns dementia and forces the residents to bow to his child's puppet named Jenny Penn, or else.

00:23Based on Owen Marshall's short story of the same name, the film is largely carried by the two central performances from his acclaimed leads,

00:29both of whom are accepted producers and given meaty roles to play.

00:34Rush gives a sensitive performance as a sanctimonious judge who once commanded authority,

00:38but now tries to cling on to his dignity as both his physical condition begins to deteriorate even further

00:44and under the abuse of Lithgow, who revels in the cruelty of his power.

00:48Lithgow is especially malevolent and sinister here as he engages in his sadistic games

00:53and acting with near total impunity as he preys upon the ailments and frailties of his fellow residents,

00:58mostly for the sick thrill he has over the helpless.

01:02It becomes a battle of wills between two men, one a tyrant and the other stubborn,

01:06and the internalized Rush and the theatrical Lithgow give nicely contrasting performances that balance each other out.

01:13However, the subject matter of elder abuse is a delicate one,

01:16and the film puts a lot of emphasis on the existential dread of aging, physical decline, and death,

01:22and the loss of independence in a way which is very unsettling.

01:26The sound design is wet and slimy, aging bodies are shot from distorted angles,

01:31and the editing is deliberately disorientating as Rush loses track of time mixed with surrealist images of the puppet.

01:38The staff are so inattentive and unobservant to be patronizing and negligent,

01:42and that's clearly the point, even if the amount that Lithgow gets away with stretches credibility even for that.

01:49It does occasionally verge on the exploitive and mean-spirited, especially as Lithgow's abuses become repetitive,

01:55and the dark humour didn't really land for me to mitigate it.

01:59I genuinely wasn't sure if I was with this film or not, or whether this was just an exercise in humiliation and cruelty,

02:05and luckily it turned out it wasn't, but it is a difficult watch at times.

The Rule of Jenny Pen (John Lithgow) (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts | Getting old is terrifying

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