Some Kind of Heaven
A film about a place which, as a well-known song puts it, could be Heaven or could be Hell.
Is the title of this debut feature by Lance Oppenheim to be regarded as ironical? That's an issue which he leaves to us viewers who may have decidedly different ideas about that. Some Kind of Heaven is a documentary located in a truly massive retirement community that was opened up in the 1960s and is known as The Villages. It is located in Florida and its character could hardly be more American. It is inhabited by folks over fifty-five drawn to living together in what is described on its billboards as 'Florida's friendliest hometown', If you find that phrase heart-warming, you might want to live there yourself, but if you find it yucky that reaction will only grow as you witness the organised sporting facilities, the social gatherings (yes, there is a Villages Singles Club) and the buildings and squares which, as though part of Disneyland, are bogusly presented as having a genuine history. This home for retirees feels like a regimented world: it might remind some Britons of a Butlin's holiday camp and it arguably foreshadows the security of living in a care home, the difference being that most care home residents move there when necessity dictates it whereas The Villages is, for many, an American dream in its own right.
Whatever your view of this establishment, Some Kind of Heaven gives a fascinating insight into its character. If that were all it did, you might ask for a more investigative approach and for much more detail about the organisation, the cost of residence and the length of waiting lists if such exist. However, Oppenheim chooses instead to extend beyond that element and to create a very effective film by blending its portrait of the life-style offered by The Villages with four individual life stories that prove absorbing. In this connection he has found contrasted individuals and cuts back and forth between them. There's Barbara Lochiatto, a widow from Boston, Reggie and Anne Kincer who have been married for forty-seven years and an outsider, Dennis Dean, who uses the swimming pools in The Villages but is not an inhabitant since he lives just outside in a camper van.
Of these four Barbara, the only one still working, is by far the most sympathetic. It is she who declares that it is not the real world ("We live in a bubble") but, having arrived there with her husband who then died, she lacks the funds to return to Massachusetts and has therefore adapted to this way of life. In marked contrast we have Dean, an 81-year-old singleton whose arrival is a fresh step in his scheme to find a wealthy wife provided - as he points out - that she is also good-looking. He sounds like a rogue, but at least he's honest with it. As for the married couple, Anne seems suited to this existence but Reggie yearns for something that allows him to be more individual. One is sympathetic to his attitude until it becomes apparent that by recently turning to drugs in the belief that it will bring him to a spiritual place he has brought on mental issues. His behaviour is such that he ends up in court and ultimately the future of his marriage is threatened.
For a first time director, Lance Oppenheim shows great skill in making the intercutting between the tales of these four people so smooth and, while they appear authentic, it should be added that anyone not usually attracted to documentaries may well find Some Kind of Heaven as gripping as any set of fictional tales. The blend is, perhaps, a rather unusual one but the film is consistently engaging.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Barbara Lochiatto, Dennis Dean, Reggie Kincer, Anne Kincer, Gary Schwartz and residents of The Villages, Florida.
Dir Lance Oppenheim, Pro Darren Aronofsky, Kathleen Lingo, Jeffrey Soros, Simon Horsman, Melissa Oppenheim Lano, Pacho Velez and Lance Oppenheim, Ex Pro Ari Handel, Brendan Naylor, Morgan Earnest, Andrew Blau, Jake Carter, Trevor Groth, Tristen Buckfield, Lindsay Crouse and Jeff Orlowski, Ph David Bolen, Ed Daniel Garber and Lance Oppenheim, Music Ari Balouzian.
30West/Los Angeles Media Fund/Protozoa/The New York Times-Dogwoof.
83 mins. USA. 2020. Rel: 14 May 2021. Available on VOD. Cert. 12.