SOME KIND OF HEAVEN | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Lance Oppenheim (15, 83 mins)
A documentary showing life in a ‘Disneyland for the retired’, the Villages in Florida, that exudes melancholy with flashes of hope. Masterfully shot in a series of tableaus, making full use of beautiful Floridian sunsets and an immense amount of trust built with its subjects, director Oppenheim follows several people in this strange silver-haired bubble.
Married-for-47-years Reggie and Anne; widow Barbara, lonely and looking for love; Dennis, an eightysomething bachelor who isn’t even a member of the community at all: the Villages is an idealized version of the Americana of the past for the boomer generation, with town squares, kitsch eateries and golf carts. It’s God’s waiting room and some people are grasping what they can from it, but it’s falseness and strange reality jars with many. Reggie is relying heavily on drugs while his stoic wife looks on, bottling up all her fear and resentment, until events cause a reassessment. The Tai Chi practitioner has been trying to escape reality, distancing himself from his long-suffering wife.
Oppenheim keeps the camera on his subjects in unflinching but beautifully composed shots, like some Wes Anderson movie. Barbara, heartbreakingly, is looking for something in the community to cling to after the death of her husband – trying out various societies for size, from acting class to margarita drinking to tambourine-shaking singles clubs, and looking utterly at sea in them all. Dennis, a man who has always prided himself on his freedom, lives in his van in the parking lot outside the Villages, desperate to find a woman inside to live with who can support him now his money has run out and his past is catching up with him.
Some Kind Of Heaven unflinchingly delivers their nuanced tales, allowing their faces to tell a deep story about love, loss and desperation. The Villages feels like a Stepford Wives community, with people from all around the US looking for something to give their final years meaning, amidst an unreal facade. A deep vein of sadness runs through the whole film, reminding all who watch it of the finiteness and the importance of time, of living life as we all think it should be lived. Oppenheim has created a penetrating glimpse into an ageing world – often funny and eccentric, but also full of yearning – in this moving and engrossing documentary.
Released via Dogwoof On Demand and other streaming platforms on Fri 14 May
words KEIRON SELF