We’ve all heard about what goes on behind the closed gates of some of Florida’s most popular retirement communities. With promises of an exciting night life, endless group activities and an all you can eat buffet of potential love interests for single seniors, these institutions have often been likened to college campuses for the over 60s. Sadly, as liberating and inviting as this might sound, some retirees feel let down by their new lives in the sun.
In his debut documentary feature Some Kind of Heaven, 25-year- old Jewish director Lance Oppenheim trawls the streets, bars and clubs of The Villages, a heavily populated retirement community in his native central Florida, in search of those who haven’t found their happy ever after in this artificial Utopia. Produced by award-winning director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), the film presents a timely and necessary look at old age and loneliness in one of the richest countries in the world.
Established by Jewish developer Harold Schwartz, The Villages was billed as a place for baby boomers to recapture the America of their youth. With its 1950s style white picket fenced homes, palm tree lined streets and twee corner shops, The Villages feels like you’re stepping into a past that now only exists in movies. And if this all sounds a little MAGA, it’s no coincidence — you’d be be hard pressed to see a non white face among the 130,000 plus residents.
Oppenheim follows four disenfranchised individuals for whom life hasn’t been a bed of roses since moving down south. Among them is Barbara who moved from Boston to The Villages with her husband some ten years earlier. Recently widowed and feeling lonelier than ever, Barbara wishes she could go back to New England but the money has run out and she’s had to go back to work full time.
