The documentary ‘Some Kind of Heaven’ chronicles love at a Florida retirement community
THE last time the population of The Villages was examined with any scrutiny was this past summer, when a rally by residents of the central Florida retirement community in support of President Donald Trump made headlines, after a participant in a parade of golf carts was heard to angrily shout, ‘White power’ at a group of counterprotesters. A video clip of the incident was shared on Twitter (and later deleted) by the president himself.
The shadow of that unpleasantness – in a community that is 98.3 per cent White and where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 2 to 1 – hardly darkens the poignant and at times wry new documentary ‘Some Kind of Heaven,’ which looks at the search for love in a planned community where 80 per cent of the residents are over 65. And yet it is hard not to sometimes be reminded of the Villager’s outburst in a film with such a startling lack of diversity. Nearly everyone on camera is White (though thanks to frequent sunbathing, the skin color of many of the film’s participants is closer to that of toasted almonds).
The feature debut of Lance Oppenheim, ‘Heaven’ follows four subjects, three of whom are Villagers, over the course of several months. Barbara Lochiatto is a lonely widow who moved from Massachusetts to The Villages several years ago, and who strikes up a courtship with golf cart salesman and Jimmy Buffett disciple Lynn Henry. Then there are the Kincers, Anne and Reggie, whose marriage of 47 years is threatened when Reggie’s recreational drug use gets him in trouble with the law, even as he seems to be sliding into dementia. Finally, there’s Dennis Dean, a somewhat sleazy, 81year-old California playboy who is living out of his van as he looks for a wealthy woman in The Villages to move in with.
Dean’s story takes a surprising turn, midway through the movie, lending the film a bit of drama.
The most amusing, perhaps even surreal portions of Oppenheim’s film have to do with everyday life in The Villages, described as ‘Disney World for retirees’ for its fake Spanish-colonial backstory, carefully engineered to mask the fact that The Villages only came into existence in the 1980s. There are thousands of organised activities and clubs, including one in which all the members are named Elaine. If ‘Heaven’ had just stick with the bizarro, it would have made a nice, perhaps even Oscar-worthy short film.
But the film deepens and grows more thoughtful – and, yes, sad – as its spotlight on the need for human connection – at any age – comes into focus. The stories of the four people at its center show Villagers to be more than statistics. — The Washington Post