Having access to Shudder allows me to catch productions that have eluded my local theaters. The Rule of Jenny Pen is one such case in point. It's a movie I'm grateful to have experienced.
Directed by James Ashcroft, who co-wrote with Eli Kent (based on a short story by Owen Marshall), Jenny Pen plays like a non-supernatural Bubba Ho-Tep, with heavy margins of Magic, underscored by Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Misery, with the sad surrealism of The Amusement Park and the anxious hope of "Kick the Can."
It tells the plight of Judge Stefan Mortensen, played by Geoffrey Rush, who has a stroke while sentencing a pedophile. He's shipped off to a care home, where he's to recuperate (though it's implied he may become a permanent fixture). Along the way. the wheelchaired judge detects strange behavior from one of the residents, a presumed dementia patient, Dave Crealy, played by John Lithgow, who clings to a baby-doll puppet called Jenny Pen (named after a once popular singer).
During the afterhours, Mortensen witnesses Crealy using the puppet to taunt his roommate, George Henare's Tony Garfield, a former rugby player, who (thanks to Crealy's sinister prodding) "rules" the poor man with mortifying demands. Crealy, aware that the judge has witnessed the assault, turns on him. This leads to a series of back-and-forth scenarios of reveal-and-conceal, with Mortensen's accusations either ignored or scorned by staff, all due to the Crealy's infantile guise, even as he continues to toy with the facility's other inhabitants.
Though the story is both clever and engaging, Jenny Pen's performances raise it to a mesmerizing level. Rush's Mortensen may be quarrelsome, but he's also caring and determined enough to earn empathy. Lithgow, meanwhile, has a tour de force as Crealy, swinging from despondent innocent to full-scale sadist, referencing some of his prior villains (in particular of Dexter, Raising Cain, Buckaroo Banzai, Ricochet, Blow Out and Cliffhanger) for a spellbinding blend. Hanare balances the two, as a man who wishes to evade trouble, but only becomes further shackled from his fear, his performance quite tender in those moments when Mortensen implores him to take a stand.
In the end, Jenny Pen unveils the underbelly of people's facades and the ghastly tactic of gaslighting (making good folks feel bad about themselves). It depicts the utter despair of trying to make others see what's obvious and despite the blaring evidence, having such dismissed. In Jenny Pen's case, Mortensen and Garfield (much like Elvis and JFK in Bubba Ho-Tep) must take matters into their own hands. It takes courage and principle for them to strike back, and their need to do so becomes so riveting that one can't help but cheer them on.
There's much to identify with in this psychological, terror tale. If one holds a penchant for this type of behavioral study, Jenny Pen is one to seek, and be assured, once found, its message will haunt one forever.
