John Lithgow has a sinister side that we don’t often see. Anyone who watched season 4 of the show Dexter saw it. There he played the title character’s primary nemesis, a seemingly genial paterfamilias who revealed untold amounts of psychopathy as he carried out his killings under the police nickname the Trinity Killer, his eyes and his smile constantly out of sync. We get that turned up to 11, but in a good way, in The Rule of Jenny Pen, the new feature from New Zealand director James Ashcroft, where the 79-year-old American actor adds another degree of late-career difficulty: He tries a Kiwi accent. It goes in and out, but is true in a lot of moments – as true as the portrait of an elderly man in a care home who torments other residents with a baby hand puppet he calls Jenny Pen, after a fictitious British singer.

His own primary nemesis is not much more sympathetic. That’s Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), a respected but harsh judge who is stricken while on the bench. In order to convalesce as he regains the use of his legs, which Stefan considers a given but the care staff find less likely, Stefan moves into the home, where he’s sharing a room with a retired rugby star (George Henare) also under the miniature thumb of Jenny Pen.

Here Ashcroft delves into what is always fertile ground when it comes to senior citizens robbed of their faculties. We aren’t sure who to believe and what is in whose head. The demented Dave Crealy certainly seems to be sneaking into people’s rooms at night, torturing them into admitting that Jenny Pen rules, then forcing them to lick her arsehole (actually Dave’s wrist), basically ruining the possibility of a good night’s sleep. That’s doable for Dave, since he’s one of the lucky ones with full mobility. But there’s always the chance this is in Stefan’s mind, and to the callous staff, there’s no other explanation worth considering.

Ashcroft is no stranger to deep dives into the darkness of human beings. That had an almost literal embodiment in his last film, if you consider its title: Coming Home in the Dark (2021), which watched two drifters manhandle a family on their camping trip in the remotest parts of New Zealand. “Manhandle” is an understatement. If The Rule of Jenny Pen backs off on some of the relentless misery of his previous effort, it’s only by a small degree, and Ashcroft’s focus on twisted minds remains sharp.

He’s also bringing a different visual approach from the realistic Dark. The titular puppet appears in many sizes and shapes and even the occasional different facial expression – though her default expression is disturbing enough – as she firmly enters Stefan’s nightmares, waking or otherwise. When we are dealing with a potentially unreliable protagonist, as we are here, it’s a standard approach to approximate their skewed perspective on the world through twisting and warping their environment, with horrific flashes and visual distortions that may be the onset of another stroke, or just mental deterioration more generally. Talented filmmakers, though, do this in a way that feels fresh, and complements what is obviously a confident eye even in the quieter moments. (There’s a split diopter shot here to boot, where the foreground and background are in focus at the same time due to a tricky in-camera technique.)

Lithgow shines. His instability takes multiple forms. There’s the slack, dead-behind-the-eyes form. There’s the bug-eyed, hyperactive form, which even has a memorable showcase in which the character does a dance that would be challenging even for actors not entering their ninth decade on the planet. All forms are disquieting, and if they are ever momentarily comedic, we are always back to feeling completely unnerved by this man moments later. We get some additional information on his background as the film goes on.

Not to be outdone is Rush, who hasn’t gotten a role this juicy for some time as he works his way back from cancellable misconduct allegations. Rush doesn’t shy away from making the character feel irredeemable for most of the time. If we are meant to barrack for Stefan, it’s only because he’s the man we started out with, and whatever monstrosity he may display pales in comparison to that of the puppet-wearing freak. Rush commits to his bastard of a character, and also to the rigours of playing a recent stroke victim.

If something holds back The Rule of Jenny Pen from being as effective as these ingredients suggest it should be, it’s that Ashcroft is not as successful going beneath the surface to figure out what makes these characters tick. Stefan’s lack of visitors is confirmation of a default mean spirit that has left him alone in life, but it leaves us with only a present tense grasp on the man, who is no more than a sum of the things that happen to him. The same can be said for Dave, whose past we know more about from a chilling series of photos that recalls The Shining. However, the road that led to this destination is merely hinted at. Only in the character of the rugby star, sensitively played by George Henare, do we get a real sense of the more pitiable aspects of elder care and elder abuse.

We get the idea, though, that this is not an oversight by Ashcroft. If anything, it’s a lack of interest. If the director’s first two features are any indication, he’s more interested in bringing us nightmares that are largely devoid of conventional senses of relief or conventional psychoanalysis. If we can read anything from his body of work to date, it’s that sometimes the world is just evil – and that sometimes, that evil is embodied by a deranged baby puppet asking you to lick its arsehole.

 

The Rule of Jenny Pen opens today in cinemas.