Rule of Jenny Pen (2024)

James Ashcroft follows up his COMING HOME IN THE DARK with an even more cruel and ugly film THE RULE OF JENNY PEN.

The story has judge Geoffrey Rush ending up in a nursing home after having a stroke. As he makes his recovery he ends up on the bad side of John Lithgow, a psycho who travels around with a creepy puppet, Jenny Pen. 

John Lithgow is pure evil. This is most insane role, and his most terrifying. Lithgow is such a monster that he may end up altering how people see him. Truth be told I understand why he took the role of Dumbldor in the Harry Potter TV series because it's probably the only thing that will take the edge off how this film will reshape how he is viewed.

Thank god Geoffrey Rush was cast opposite him. I say this because only one with Rush's skill could not get swamped by Lithgow's evil. Rush holds his own and then some.

The best reason to see this film is to see two actors tear into the scenery.

There is one problem with this film, which is going to shape how many people are  going to react it is tale is incredibly mean and cruel. From the opening scene where Rush torments the mother of a victim for letting her child near the kid's attacker, on to a guy setting himself on fire just because, on to the nastiness that Lithgow dishes out, this film just wants to abuse it's characters. Yes, there is a cathartic ending, but watching the film makes us feel like Rush's character after Lithgow doses him with piss and the people in the home do nothing about it. This film is just 100 plus minutes of abuse until the final minutes when it isn't.

There was a certain point where I just turned off. Yea, there are some great performances and a wonderful villain but at a certain point it just became too much ugliness. Everything in this film is set up to allow the nastiness to occur, so it slips into an unreality.  Perhaps if the staff did more than side with Lithgow or been more than cardboard cutouts that allowed things to happen I might have liked it more. At what point do the people on the sidelines become more than window dressing?

Yes the film is good,and Yes the performances are worthy of Oscars, but this is not a one you enjoy as anything other than something that pushes your buttons.

You're on your own.