Some Kind of Heaven (2020 | USA | 83 minutes | Lance Oppenheim)

Before writing about the new movie Some Kind of Heaven, I want to quote extensively from what Politico wrote in a long story about The Villages in 2018 that I think about often:

The Villages is America’s largest retirement community, a carefully planned, meticulously groomed dreamscape of gated subdivisions, wall-to-wall golf courses, adult-only pools and old-fashioned town squares. It’s advertised as “Florida’s friendliest hometown,” and it’s supposed to evoke a bygone era of traditional values when Americans knew their neighbors, respected their elders and followed the rules. It has the highest concentration of military veterans of any metropolitan area without a military base. It has strict regulations enforcing the uniformity of homes (no second stories, no bright colors, no modern flourishes) as well as the people living in them (no families with children, except to visit). And it is Trump country, a reliably Republican, vocally patriotic, almost entirely white enclave that gave the president nearly 70 percent of the vote.

Older voters are America’s most reliable voters, which is why baby-boomer boomtowns like The Villages represent the most significant threat to a potential Democratic wave in Florida in 2018—and the most significant source of Republican optimism for many years to come. Because while the Villages may look like the past, with its retro architecture and gray-haired demographics, it sells like the future. This master-planned paradise an hour northwest of Disney World has been the fastest-growing metro area in the United States in four of the past five years. And as the baby boom generation continues to retire, The Villages is continuing to expand into nearby cattle pastures, luring more pensioners to this fantasyland in the sunshine, gradually swinging America’s largest swing state to the right.

Trump supporters who get the most media attention tend to be economically anxious laborers in economically depressed factory towns. But in Florida, economically secure retirement meccas like The Villages are the real reason Trump won in 2016…

The Villages retirement community is the subject of a fascinating new documentary out this week, the aforementioned Some Kind of Heaven. It’s is produced in part by the New York Times and Darren Aronofsky is one of the producers.

The Villages spans about 32 square miles and has a population of around 100,000 people. The residents call it “Disneyland for Retirees” and that seems about right. The community is overwhelmingly white, wealthy, and horny. They have nightclubs that are active seven nights a week and a scandalized Daily Mail said, “Dozens of couples have been caught copulating outdoors before but police rarely issue more than a warning for fear of mucking up the area’s low crime figures.”

Some Kind of Heaven profiles a handful of Villages residents and looks at why and how they arrived to the famous Florida community. One man ends up there because he fled a DUI charge in California. “I’m kind of a fugitive from the law,” he says in a phone call. Every resident featured in this movie (and likely every resident throughout the Villages overall) understands that they are living the last days and years of their lives there and think this is where they can maximize their fun before their inevitable deaths. It’s called “God’s Waiting Room” for a reason. They are also aware that their partners can be replaced by one of the countless single people in the community.

Sex and politics are of little concern to director Lance Oppenheim, nor is the more diverse staff who serves this uniformly white community, or even their soccer team. He does show an Errol Morris-like interest in the lives of these Florida Men and Women, but I don’t think there’s anyone as memorable here as in, say, Morris’s Vernon, Florida, but there is a strangeness in the conformity. There is one club that is exclusive to women named Elaine. I know it’s a little unfair to complain about the movie you didn’t see, but I was hoping I’d learn more about the Villages in a larger, macro context, versus portraits of a handful of residents at a micro level. There is some genuine sadness, like a Florida Man who lives in a van and tries to meet a woman Villager who will take him in. 

There are a handful of scenes throughout the movie that I’ll likely always remember, like seeing a judge get apoplectic over a Florida Man caught with insignificant quantities of illicit drugs (pot and cocaine), a scene from one of the nightclubs where everyone is dancing to a cover of “Blurred Lines,” and a clip from the local Villages News Network TV channel where Area Man Buys Sports Car is worth reporting. 

I can’t say that my knowledge of the Villages increased dramatically from watching Some Kind of Heaven, but, faults and all, it seems like a nice enough place to hang out while waiting to die. 

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Some Kind of Heaven is now playing in SIFF’s Virtual Cinema, as well as on the usual VOD services.