As you get older, at some point, you’re going to see the inside of a retirement home or a hospice. The pervasive proximity to death transforms this place into something that can bring up all sorts of uncomfortable feelings: despair, fear, anger, etc. In the best case scenario, the elderly hopefully can pass away with dignity, as comfortable as possible. Worst case scenario, we fall under The Rule of Jenny Pen, I’m 100% certain.
Now retired judge Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush) is dealing with a stroke that has half crippled him. He curmudgeonly goes through the motions in a retirement home, making no friends with his roommate Sonny Ausage (Nathaniel Lees) and assuming this is all temporary. Things take a left turn the minute Stefan runs into Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), the most agile resident of the home, using his physical gifts to assert his will on this place.
It’s all right there, and no one thought to do it. James Ashcroft must feel like I do when visiting someone in a retirement home, and takes those feelings and manifests them onscreen as a horror/thriller. Even without Dave Crealy in a scene, Ashcroft shoots the retirement home as a cold, unfeeling haunted house/prison. The staff is there to do a job, with the appearances of empathy, but nothing to back it up, making them wardens. The rest of the old folks are human zombies Stefan has to wander through, doing required activities without thinking for themselves, that he has to navigate through without being “bitten” by the “old fart” virus. The activities Stefan is forced to participate in come across more like torture techniques, feeding that “old fart” virus into his body against his wishes. Pushing him to the breaking point, where his own mind starts to play tricks on him, adding to his paranoia. Ashcroft sets the stage upon which the struggling Stefan Mortensen finds himself, thinking things couldn’t get worse.
Except they can, thanks to John Lithgow. Even though he played Roger Ailes the devil incarnate, Dave Crealy is one of his best sinister creations ever. The talented actor shows off all those creepy skills to perfection. His silent stare will send a shiver down your spine. Dave always finds a way to recede into all the darkest parts of the home, making many parts of the home scary as sh*t. But soon Dave gets closer, and he starts talking…and talking….and talking, exerting his alpha male status on men like Stefan or Sonny, who suddenly find themselves powerless in this new place. Lithgow plays that fear as gleeful, to the terror of Stefan and the audience alike, who hope against hope he’ll only dominate TV time with his maniacal laughter and leave them alone, just once. I don’t know how much more time we’ll get with John Lithgow, but he at least left us with this indelible memorable freak, that should be used as a warning in all retirement homes to keep the elderly behaved.
I’ll never forget those first retirement home experiences I had. Watching my poor helpless grandparent unable to move, stuck with an annoying roommate who couldn’t stop auto speaking (some form of Tourettes). All the bleak parts of that existence were his Rule of Jenny Pen: a preview of coming attractions for basically everyone. So be prepared, future self. When you get stuck in that home, watch out for the Dave Crealy’s out there, and don’t be afraid to make some friends, to fight dictators like that.