Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow. Two elder luminaries of the cinema world. Lithgow turned in a fine performance as a conniving American cardinal in 2024’s “Conclave,” nd Best Actor Oscar-winner Rush, long a stage actor in Australia, is best known in film for “Shine” and “Quills.”
Stefan Mortenson (Rush) is a criminal court judge in New Zealand. One day, while delivering his judgment against a defendant, he suffers a stroke. He ends up in a convalescent home where he expects to rebuild his strength before returning to his normal life. However, not everything is to his liking. He has a roommate, a former soccer star, Tony Garfield (George Henare), the head of staff won’t take his complaints seriously, and he is intimidated by a weird resident, Dave Crealy (Lithgow), who wears a doll’s body on his right hand.
Crealy takes pleasure in lording it over the other residents of the convalescent home, taking their food, generally intimidating them and especially tormenting Garfield. Part of this torment includes forcing him to agree that the doll, Jenny Pen, rules the home and then making him lick Crealy’s wrist, which stands in for Jenny Pen’s backside.
Of course, Mortenson reports all this to head of staff Madeline Shepard (Holly Shanahan), but no one will back up his complaints and the staff seem oblivious to Crealy’s behavior. Then Mortenson discovers that Crealy had been on the staff at the home for decades before he became a resident.
This is the setup for a very disturbing tale about elderly abuse. These are people who, often crippled and confused, are even less able to defend themselves than many children, especially when their abuser is another resident.
Director/writer James Ashcroft (“Coming Home in the Dark”) builds the tension without ever using jump scares or creepy locales filled with ominous shadows. Instead, it is the creaking of the floor in the middle of the night, the shadow of feet outside an unlocked bedroom door, and the ever present half doll with no eyes that is Jenny Pen.
The music sound track is measured and gently adds to the sense of foreboding without ever intruding. That leaves the real work of unsettling us to the actors, and Lithgow, Rush and Henare are up to the task. This is especially true of Lithgow, whose antics, which could be considered comedic, are in fact deeply threatening. He is a master of facial expression, and he uses it well here to create a memorable portrait of a sadistic psychopath.
This is a small genre film, well crafted and worth a look.
Runtime: One hour, 43 minutes
Availability: In theaters now; streaming on Shudder on March 28
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