Some Kind of Heaven
A documentary looking at a few residents of ‘The Villages’, the world’s largest retirement community over in Florida. It’s a weird sort of Disneyland for older people, that since its inception in the 80s has grown to a huge population.
Oppenheim resists the temptation to do a surface level piece on this, which is admirable because I would totally have droned on about it for hours. A fairy land for old people where you never have to leave, and the population is over 80000? A newly built town centre that pretends to have a 200 year old history? I have so many questions about how a place like that even exists and runs. The thing is though, you can scratch that itch just by looking it up on the internet. He does give us a little taste of it, like going into a golf cart dealership or attending various classes and activities, but it’s not the whole film.
Instead it’s a much richer movie, a deeper dive into the lives of a handful of people living there. A woman who moved looking for a better life and misses her home. A man on the run living in a van, looking for a rich wife. A couple married for years but the husband has taken to psychedelic drugs and ended up in court.
It strikes me as the kind of place that can only exist in America. A bubble that keeps out all the troubles of the world. If you can get on board and ignore the artifice then you can line-dance and swim-class your way to happiness. If you can’t then it’s like being trapped in some sort of nightmare.
Perhaps this is low-hanging fruit for a documentary, but there’s an artfulness and sense of empathy to the way it’s been made that sets it apart from what some idiots like me would have done. It’s funny but doesn’t invite you to mock these people or judge them.
I would also recommend Oppenheim’s excellent three-parter, Ren Faire1, which is another ‘only in America’ type story that doesn’t quite go where you think it’s going.