GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★
Rated: MA15+
Directed by: James Ashcroft
Based on the Short Story Written by: Owen Marshall
Screenplay Written by: James Ashcroft, Eli Kent
Produced by: Catherine Fitzgerald, Olando Stewart
Starring: John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush, Nathaniel Lees.
‘Stefan, are you with us?’
An ant crawls across a table as Stefan (Geoffrey Rush) observes.
Stefan folds a tissue to squash the insect, a metaphor for how, working as a judge, he towers over people, how he sees people.
He sits in judgement – a hard stance.
Before suffering a stroke.
Tough, unflinching, Stefan’s admitted into the Royal Pine Mews Care Home.
He meets his fellow resident and roommate, Sonny (Nathaniel Lees).
Previously a famous rugby player for New Zealand, Sonny tries to be friendly with Stefan, but he’s having none of it. He’ll recover. Go home. He just needs time
Enter Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), first introduced as a blue eye watching through the cracked opening of a door, watching as Stefan uses a bottle to pee.
Dave Crealy always has a puppet doll with him, Jenny Pen.
He’s one of the ‘nutters’.
But Dave Crealy is strong. He uses his strength to bully the other residents. Each taunt becoming cruel. Brutal. An added dimension to the nightmare Stefan finds himself living.
Rehab sees Stefan reaching for a cup, a nurse encouraging him to reach out, to use his fingers while Dave Crealy laughs maniacally in the background watching predators on TV, but really, he’s like the predators, he laughs at his prey, struggling to hold a cup.
There’s a play of perspective as the film is seen from Stefan’s point of view, with Jenny Pen looming large, a silhouette dancing behind a red curtain; a giant to represent fear growing as Dave Crealy dominants the care home.
But I didn’t find the doll particularly scary. It’s what the doll represents that’s the horror of the film, the loss of control, power; the not being believed.
The main setting of the film is within the care home, shown in a realistic view, that dry tone a backdrop to the performances of heavy hitters, John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush and Nathaniel Lees.
The nightmarish quality of Stefan’s illness is shown with gaps of time, the swing from a neuropsychological test showing what Stefan sees – a clock with all the numbers in order to what the clinician sees, the lateral damage of Stefan’s brain shown in numbers run askew.
The isolation of his illness is amplified by this quietly absorbing battle between the sadistic Dave Crealy and the grumpy, bitter judge slowly losing his faculties living in a world no one sees or pretends not to see so the torture is like a terrible secret hidden in plain sight.
There’s a good story here, based on the short story written by Owen Marshall, with strong performances and thought put into the perspective of the residents to take the audience into that secret world of feeling powerless.
Worth a watch.
