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I first heard about The Rule of Jenny Pen when the film was making its rounds on the festival circuit last year, and I’ve been dying to see it ever since. The premise sounded super intriguing, the movie features one of my favorite actors of all time, and to top it all off, Stephen King, arguably the biggest name in the horror genre today, gave the film his stamp of approval. That trifecta was more than enough to earn The Rule of Jenny Pen a spot near the top of my most-anticipated list, so I bought a ticket for opening weekend as soon as I got the chance. I couldn’t wait to find out if this movie lived up to the hype, and now that I’ve finally seen it for myself, I’m sad to report that it’s a huge disappointment.
The Rule of Jenny Pen was directed and co-written by James Ashcroft, and it stars John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush. In the film, Stefan Mortensen is an elderly judge who enters a nursing home after suffering a stroke in the courtroom, and soon after he arrives, he realizes something isn’t quite right with the place. One of the residents, a man named Dave Crealy, terrorizes his neighbors, but somehow, the home’s staff are completely oblivious to this guy’s mean streak. He puts on a facade of elderly senility whenever they’re around, but when they’re not watching, Dave turns into an absolute monster. As you can probably guess, he eventually sets his sights on the home’s newest patient, and since the staff won’t do anything about it, Stefan decides to take matters into his own hands. I ended up not liking The Rule of Jenny Pen, but that doesn’t mean the whole movie was terrible. I actually quite enjoyed the first thirty minutes or so, and that was largely due to the two lead stars. Let’s begin with Geoffrey Rush. He plays Stefan, and he’s fantastic. His character is extremely bitter about his deteriorating condition, and he takes it out on the people around him. At his best, the man is merely apathetically aloof, but at his worst, he’s verbally abusive. Geoffrey Rush completely sells the poor guy’s plight and his less-than-noble attitude about it, so you almost can’t help but have mixed feelings about him. Sure, Stefan isn’t exactly a likable protagonist, but you can’t really blame him for his less savory qualities. He’s lost a lot of his independence, and he probably feels like he’s lost much of his dignity as well, so you totally understand why he’s lashing out. In fact, in the midst of everything The Rule of Jenny Pen does poorly, the best thing about this film just might be its unflinching examination of the abasement and humiliation the elderly often experience. For instance, when Stefan gets bathed, you can see the shame and dejection in his face, and when he tries to report Dave for the man’s horrific behavior, the staff pretty much just ignore him and assume he’s going senile. Those are only a couple of examples, but The Rule of Jenny Pen features a number of similarly heartbreaking moments. The movie can be a bit tough to watch at times, but it’s important that we see the indignities the elderly have to face. We can’t treat them with the love and respect they deserve if we don’t understand their struggles, and this film does a fairly good job of shedding light on the crosses they’re often forced to bear. Getting back to the lead performances, John Lithgow plays Dave, and he’s not given quite as much to do as his costar. As I said earlier, his character feigns senility much of the time, so Lithgow doesn’t always have to show off his world-class acting chops. But don’t worry, there are plenty of times when the script calls for him to be more than just a decrepit old man, and when it does, he’s excellent. He pulls off mysteriously creepy and full-on psycho with equal aplomb, so he turns many of his scenes into genuine nightmares. Granted, the score and the camerawork do their fair share as well, but Lithgow’s performance takes the early horror in The Rule of Jenny Pen to another level. He makes it an incredibly atmospheric slow burn that will have you dying to know what this guy’s deal is, so for about the first thirty minutes or so of this movie, I was totally on board. But as the story wore on, my patience began to wear thin. Dave’s odious antics eventually make him feel more like a high school bully than a legit horror villain, so after a while, I just couldn’t take him seriously anymore. I kept waiting for him to reveal a larger plan or a darker force behind his actions, but that moment never came. This guy is nothing more than an eighty-year-old schoolyard menace, and there are even a few scenes where he asks his victims “Who rules?” and forces them to say “Jenny Pen” and lick the back of his wrist. See, Jenny Pen is a hand puppet he constantly wears, and the back of his wrist is supposed to be the puppet’s backside. It’s an incredibly juvenile way of showing his dominance over his neighbors, so every time Dave did this, I couldn’t help but think of the famous Billy Madison line “O’Doyle rules!” I don’t know about you, but I don’t find the idea of a nursing home bully very interesting, so as much as I love Stephen King, I have to disagree with him on this one. Sure, The Rule of Jenny Pen starts strong, but the film quickly runs its promising premise straight into the ground. It ends up being a huge nothingburger, so unless you absolutely have to see this movie for yourself, I strongly suggest giving it a pass.
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I’ve been looking forward to Mickey 17 for a while. In fact, it became one of my most anticipated upcoming films even before I knew what it was about. When I learned the movie was being made by Bong Joon Ho, the man behind the 2019 hit Parasite, I immediately put it on my must-watch list. This guy has been making amazing genre films for over two decades (if you’ve only seen Parasite, I highly recommend checking out his other work; you won’t be disappointed), so I’ll watch anything he does. I couldn’t wait to see this darkly comedic sci-fi adventure, and now that I finally have, I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint.
Mickey 17 was written and directed by Bong Joon Ho, and it stars Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. In the film, the titular Mickey is in a unique line of work. His job is to die. Repeatedly. See, in this world, humanity has perfected its cloning technology, so if someone’s desperate enough, they can become an expendable. These are people, like Mickey, whose job is to be experimented on and perform jobs so dangerous they’re essentially suicide missions, and every time they die, their employer simply prints them a new body, complete with their memories and personality. But one day, something goes wrong. Mickey’s seventeenth iteration (hence the name Mickey 17) doesn’t die like he’s supposed to, so when the company creates another clone, they end up with two Mickeys simultaneously. This is a big taboo, so Mickey 17 has to keep his existence a secret for as long as possible. But of course, that’s easier said than done. He doesn’t stay in the shadows for long, and soon enough, the two Mickeys find themselves at the center of a potentially catastrophic encounter between humanity and an otherworldly species that can only be described as giant roly-polies. Like any movie, Mickey 17 relies heavily on the strength of its characters, and to be honest, they’re a bit of a mixed bag. Let’s start with the negatives. The primary antagonist of this film is Kenneth Marshall, a conniving, evil politician who hides his dastardly plans behind a hypocritical facade of Christian faith, and he’s about as flat as they come. If you close your eyes and just listen to his dialogue, you’d almost certainly picture him twirling his mustache every time he opens his mouth, and to make matters worse, actor Mark Ruffalo plays the part like a bad Donald Trump impersonation. He even purses his lips when he speaks, so if you enjoy overly on-the-nose political commentary, you’re going to love this guy. But if you’re like me and you prefer it when filmmakers at least try to be a bit subtle, this character is just going to make you roll your eyes every time he’s on screen. Along similar lines, Marshall’s wife, Ylfa, is just as one-dimensional and over the top as her husband, so the two make for one of the most uninteresting villain duos I’ve seen in a while. There’s just nothing to these characters beyond their propensity for evil, so if you ask me, they feel more like walking plot points than real, flesh-and-blood human beings. It’s a huge character misstep that essentially lays the weight of this story entirely on the good guys’ shoulders, and in a lot of movies, that would be fatal. But not here. Mickey 17 manages to avoid that pitfall, and the film’s biggest saving grace is Robert Pattinson’s amazing dual performance. He plays all the Mickey variants, but of course, Mickeys 17 and 18 are the stars of the show. Interestingly, most of these characters are very similar, almost indistinguishable in fact, but when Mickey 18 comes on the scene, he’s different. The movie doesn’t explain why, so if you’re looking for pinpoint logical precision, that minor plot hole is probably going to bother you. But if you can forgive slight transgressions like that, you’ll realize it’s actually for the best. By making these two versions of Mickey so different, Pattinson gets to show off his incredible range as an actor, and it’s an absolute joy to behold. The titular Mickey 17 is a timid, weak, somewhat awkward fellow, but Mickey 18 carries himself with a confident, almost arrogant bad-boy swagger. Everything about these characters, from the way they talk to their facial expressions and even the way they stand, is different, so if you didn’t know any better, you’d never think they were two versions of the same person. It’s a bit reminiscent of James McAvoy’s performances in Split and Glass, but by focusing on only two personalities, Pattinson is able to explore them in greater depth. That impressive display of acting dexterity just about carries Mickey 17, but it’s not the only thing this film has going for it. The rest of the cast is pretty good too (aside from the villains, of course), and the dark humor adds a really nice touch that keeps the story’s weighty themes from becoming too oppressive. As you can probably guess from the premise, this movie deals with death and the natural human fear of dying, so without the jokes, the experience would become very drab very quickly. But thankfully, it never does, so these heavy ideas go down much more smoothly than you might expect. On top of that, the overall message of Mickey 17 is also quite admirable. I can’t talk about it too much without giving away some key plot points, but suffice it to say that this film ultimately highlights the inalienable value of every human being. The story’s cloning technology naturally raises questions about personal identity and the possibility of overcoming death with science, but that’s little more than philosophical window dressing. Sure, those are interesting ideas to explore, but at its core, the seemingly endless succession of Mickey clones is an allegory for the ways our world (and especially those in power) often treats human life as expendable. All too often, people like Kenneth Marshall and his wife only care about advancing their own goals and interests, and they show absolutely no concern for the pain and destruction they leave in their wake. As long as it benefits them, they have no qualms about hurting or even killing those they consider expendable, and this story makes the ugliness of that attitude impossible to miss. It’s a message all people of good will can get behind, and when you combine it with Robert Pattinson’s amazing dual performance and the fun comedy, you get a great time at the theater. To be fair, the weak villains keep this movie from being one of Bong Joon Ho’s best, but a mid-tier entry in this guy’s filmography is still enough to earn a hearty thumbs up from me. If you’re a documentary aficionado, the title Last Breath might sound familiar to you. Back in 2019, there was a documentary with that name about a harrowing deep-sea rescue, and now, one of the directors behind it has turned the story into a feature film. I haven’t seen that documentary myself, but it was generally well received (according to Rotten Tomatoes), so I was interested to see this fictionalized version of the tale. Granted, I wasn’t sure if it would be any good, but the premise sounded interesting enough, so I decided to give this movie a shot.
Last Breath was directed and co-written by Alex Parkinson, and it stars Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, and Finn Cole as Duncan, Dave, and Chris, three men with one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. They’re saturation divers, which means they travel to the bottom of the sea to work on undersea pipelines. On this particular dive, the trio head to the bottom of the North Sea, but soon after they begin working, something terrible happens. The ship that lowers them down gets caught in a horrible storm, and Chris’s connection to the diving vessel snaps. He gets stranded 1,000 feet below sea level, and his teammates have to do everything possible to rescue him before it’s too late. As you can probably guess from that plot synopsis, Last Breath is a thrill-a-minute pressure cooker, but it doesn’t start out that way. The film actually spends about a half hour establishing its major players and introducing us to their harrowing profession, and that time is supposed to help viewers forge an emotional connection with these characters before the story begins in earnest. Unfortunately though, it doesn’t entirely work. To be fair, the three lead stars do an admirable job with the material they’re given. Finn Cole is the charismatic nice guy you can’t help but like, Simu Liu exudes a silent strength that shines despite his sparse dialogue, and Woody Harrelson has the characteristically playful, almost whimsical demeanor that makes him such a beloved movie star. But despite those solid performances, Last Breath still struggles on this front. The film just doesn’t develop its main trio beyond their one-line descriptions, so all three of these men end up feeling a bit more like cliched stereotypes than real, flesh-and-blood human beings. Those thinly drawn characterizations make it difficult for us to care about these guys, so the story has to work extra hard to get us invested. In most films, that flaw would be nearly fatal, but somehow, Last Breath manages to overcome it. Once Chris’s connection snaps, this movie becomes the nonstop thrill ride we all expected. Just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong, so Duncan, Dave, and the ship’s crew have to pull out all the stops to rescue their lost comrade. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t entirely sure if director Alex Parkinson would be able to maintain that tension long enough to sustain an entire feature film, but he somehow pulls it off. The suspense lasts for about forty-five minutes, and for almost that entire time, you’ll be on the edge of your seat. Last Breath is a pretty impressive piece of nail-biting filmmaking, and it even manages to overcome the biggest hurdle a movie like this has to face. Since it’s based on a true story, you’re already pretty sure Chris is going to make it out alive no matter how grim things get, and that could’ve easily sapped the thrills of all their power. Alex Parkinson needed to find a way to make you believe Chris’s fate was genuinely uncertain, and for my money, he succeeded. Granted, I was still pretty sure the guy was going to survive, but there were a few times when my confidence started to waver a bit. I found myself wondering if this story was going to end up being a tragedy, and…well, I’ll let you watch the movie yourself to find out what really happens. Suffice it to say that Last Breath is a truly effective thriller, but it’s not just an empty exercise in deep-sea tension. There’s a point to this story, and the way I see it, it’s all about the value of human life. When the characters realize that one of their companions is in mortal danger, you can almost feel the concern oozing out of them. It’s evident in the way they look and the way they talk, so you know they genuinely value this man’s life. What’s more, they can’t rescue the guy without putting their own lives at risk, but they do it anyway. He’s that important, and if you’re a Christian, you can’t help but think of Jesus’ parable about leaving the ninety-nine sheep to go look for the one that was lost. Granted, it’s not a perfect fit, but Last Breath perfectly embodies the parable’s teaching that we’re valuable as individuals, not just as parts of a larger whole. There’s even a scene that literally celebrates Chris’s life, and in a total coincidence, my allergies flared up and my eyes began to water during that touching moment. In a world where abortion, the death penalty, and a whole host of other anti-life practices are so dishearteningly prevalent, it’s just really refreshing to see a film that so clearly shines a light on the often unpopular truth that human life matters. It’s a message our culture desperately needs to hear, so despite struggling a bit with its characters, Last Breath still gets a thumbs up from me. |
Jp Nunezis a longtime film buff and theology nerd with master's degrees in theology and philosophy from Franciscan University of Steubenville. His favorite movie genres are horror, superheroes, and giant monsters. Archives
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