The Rule of Jenny Pen (Ashcroft, 2024)
Regular readers will know that this newsletter — and my career as a whole — is indebted to the support of the editor-in-chief. As I describe her to anyone who asks, “she’s the brains of the outfit” and someone whose opinion I am always grateful to hear before I sit down to type or talk about movies.
She is an excellent filmgoing companion, often turning up at screenings without knowing what it is we are going to see but always adding an astute observation or two afterwards.
Occasionally, she might lean over and say, “Why are we watching this?” — or more definitively “And we are watching this, why?” — but she knows that there’s a lot of viewing required to keep this pipeline full and trusts that there is a plan to keep it so1.
Very rarely does she make an actual request but yesterday she suggested that we watch Annie Hall in memory of Diane Keaton and that’s a film that will slot in nicely to Wednesday’s newsletter.
Today is the editor-in-chief’s birthday and I hope you’ll join me in wishing her the very best of all possible days.
Having just said that she will often tag along with whatever it is that I have to write about, she’s not keen on horror and therefore missedThe Rule of Jenny Pen in cinemas earlier this year. Recently, though, she had to watch it for her own work and it turns out she liked it a lot. We finally got to have that in-depth discussion that we would normally have going home in the car, just a few months late. I don’t think she’ll mind if I attach her recommendation to mine.
This is my review for the cinema release from March:
In The Rule of Jenny Pen’s small town rest home, residents are tormented by a puppet-wielding bully (John Lithgow) until a stroke-ridden former judge (Geoffrey Rush) and a lame ex-All Black (George Henare) decide they have no alternative but to take the law into their own feeble hands. As Omar’s famous quote from The Wire goes, “If you come for the King, you’d better not miss.”
When the casting for this film was announced I’ll admit that I was disappointed, thinking that – once again – it seemed as if a New Zealand story could only be told if we imported a couple of stars to secure the financing. Jenny Pen is based on a New Zealand short story by Owen Marshall and I had my doubts about flying in internationals to take roles that our local acting luminaries could have done.
Here’s me eating my words. The presence of Lithgow and Rush is totally justified for the reason that they are clearly the best in the world at what they do and director James Ashcroft steers them superbly.
I had expected that this film would have more of a supernatural aspect – the endorsement from Stephen King and the trailer emphasising the utterly creepy Jenny Pen doll-turned-emotional support puppet led me astray – but it’s actually a much more relatable and upsetting horror. The myriad indignities of age: mental and physical infirmity, societal invisibility, the risk of abuse and the terrible food.
Lithgow’s Dave Crealey turns out to be an interesting villain. He has psychopathic tendencies, true, but mostly he does what he does because he’s bored and no one can stop him. The fact that his body hasn’t given out the way it has for other residents gives him a power over them, allows him to rise above the mediocrity of his previous life, and you can see how intoxicating power can be in the hands of those who never had it before.
There’s an interesting interview with Perry Piercy, the voice coach who worked with Lithgow on his New Zealand accent, here at RNZ.
Also in that March 2025 new releases column: Disney’s Snow White and Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl.
Where to watch The Rule of Jenny Pen
Aotearoa, Australia, Canada, : Streaming on Shudder via AMC+
India: Digital rental
USA: Streaming on Shudder
UK: Streaming on Shudder, AMC+ or Hulu
Reader, there is only the most basic of plans but there is plenty of vision.
