Retirement paradise--as seen by folk for whom it's not: Lance Oppenheim's Florida-set doc, SOME KIND OF HEAVEN

Said to be the largest retirement community in the entire USA, The Villages, located in central Florida, is made up of mostly white, Republican and relatively affluent seniors. Oddly, even though this community is so often in the news, especially regarding its support for Donald Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, the new documentary, SOME KIND OF HEAVEN, directed by Lance Oppenheim, completely, willfully ignores politics. There's nary a mention of this hugely divisive part of our current and long-running landscape anywhere in its 83 minutes. 

Instead Mr. Oppenheim, shown at left, after opening his film with short scenes of The Villages' classes in everything from rowing to exercise to dance -- these all exert more than a whiff of Nazi-like extreme ("You vill enjoy and excel at this!") -- concentrates almost entirely on four people, only three of whom are actual residents of The Villages. The fourth, a down-on-his-luck fellow named Dennis Dean (below) lives out of his van, which he parks illegally in The Villages then spends his days trying to meet and connect with wealthy female residents who might take him in and keep him in the style to which he would like to become accustomed. (To his deluded credit, Dennis is very up-front about all this.)

We also meet a sad lady named Barbara (below), fairly recently widowed and seemingly unable to meet or connect with a new man, even though she gamely keeps trying. It is easy to understand why she is unhappy in this "paradise." 

Perhaps equally unhappy, due less to The Villages itself and more to each other, is a couple in which the husband is something of a drug addict/dreamer of whom the much more grounded wife must take constant care, whether hubby is simply getting high or going to court for cocaine possession. Around this point, you may ask yourself, as did I, "Out of the thousands and thousands of folk who live in The Villages, why the fuck did the director pick these people to highlight?"

Well, my guess is that Mr. Oppenheim was not remotely interested in The Villages community per se (we don't learn much more about it than we might about any of the many retirement communities that dot the state of Florida and exist across the rest of the country), but rather he was interested in the idea of if and how the aged can find any "happiness" at the end of the road. 

Fair enough question. But a pretty poor choice of subjects to learn much more of an answer than, "Well, probably not." Which is what you might expect from a very young filmmaker -- and a bunch of critics who are mostly young-to-middle-aged (the film so far rates 100% on Rotten Tomatoes).  

I don't mean to suggest that Some Kind of Heaven is not interesting or enjoyable. It often is one or the other and sometimes both. But TrustMovies himself lives in a Florida retirement village (Century Village, Boca Raton) that, while it has things in common with The Villages, seems utterly elsewhere by comparison to this documentary. Scratch a little deeper into the life any senior citizen and, yes, you'll likely find as much sorrow as joy. But Some Kind of Heaven, via its choice of subjects, makes certain that the negativity is ladled out a little too heavily. It simply tells its audience what that audience already thinks it knows.

From Magnolia Pictures and running 83 minutes, the documentary opens here in Florida this Friday, January 8, at the following theaters (it opens just about everywhere else across the country the following Friday, January 15): 

In FT MYERS/NAPLES: Paragon Pavilion/Naples, Silverspot/Naples JACKSONVILLE: Epic 16/St. Augustine, Epic 14/Palm Coast 

In MIAMI/FT LAUDERDALE: Cinema Paradiso/Hollywood, Savor Cinema/Fort Lauderdale, Paragon Ridge/Davie, Silverspot/Coconut Creek, Silverspot/Miami, Cobb Cinebistro at Cityplace Doral, Cobb Cinebistro at Dolphin Mall, CMX Brickell City Center/Miami, Miami Lakes 17/Miami Lakes, iPic Luxury Cinemas/North Miami Beach 

In ORLANDO/DAYTONA: Festival Bay Orlando, Cobb Plaza Café Orlando, Studio Movie Grill Sunset Walk Kissimmee, Epic 16 Clermont, Epic 12 Mount Dora, Epic Ocala, Reilly Arts Center Ocala (1/28, 1/30 – 1/31), Oaks Melbourne, Cinema World West Melbourne, Merritt Square 16 Merritt Island, Epic West Volusia 12 Deltona, Cobb Daytona Luxury Daytona. 

In TALLAHASSEE: CMX Fallschase 14 

In TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG: CMX Cinebistro at Hyde Park/Tampa, Tyrone Luxury 10/St. Petersburg, Countryside 12 Clearwater, Xscape/Riverview, Lakeside Village 18 Lakeland, Studio Movie Grill/Seminole, Touchstar Cinema Spring Hill 8/Spring Hill 

In SARASOTA:CMX Cinebistro Siesta Southgate 7 

And in  WEST PALM BEACH: Cinemark Palace 20/Boca Raton, iPic Luxury Cinemas Mizner Park/Boca Raton, iPic Luxury Cinemas, Delray Beach, CMX Cinemas Wellington/Wellington, CMX Downtown at the Gardens/Palm Beach Gardens, Cinepolis Jupiter, Cinema World/Vero Beach, Touchstar Cinema Sabal Palms, Fort Pierce.

Maite Alberdi's THE MOLE AGENT: a sneaky hybrid doc that will amuse and move you

No one seems more surprised about the Chilean newspaper ad requesting the services of an elderly male between the age of 80 and 90 -- independent, discrete and competent with technology -- than the elderly males who answer this ad, shocked that, for a change, someone wants a fellow their age rather than immediately saying no to him because of his age. The detective agency hiring needs to place the man selected inside a senior retirement home at the behest of a client who suspects her aged mother is being mistreated there.

So begins a most unusual movie that TrustMovies imagined was a narrative film (he prefers not to read all of the press release sent him about a new movie so that he can experience it without too many spoilers) but is instead said to be a documentary. If so, this film is, at the very least one of those hybrid docs that keep you on your toes and maybe cheats just a little now and then. For me, and for most of the its running time, THE MOLE AGENT -- written and directed by a young woman named Maite Alberdi (shown at right) -- appeared to be a narrative film done in strong documentary style that grows even stronger as the movie moves along.

Ms Alberdi handles the set-up, recruitment (below) and selection of the elderly spy in quick, clever fashion which anyone who has ever worked with us aged folk regarding technology will easily appreciate and enjoy. (That's Sergio, the fellow finally chosen to be the spy, above left, and his agency boss Rómulo, at right.)

At the retirement home there are, as usual below, mostly women who, worldwide it seems, live longer than us guys. So Sergio is immediately in great demand simply by being a living male, and also because he happens to be such a kindly, intelligent and empathetic gentleman. The various women, maybe a half dozen of whom we get to know fairly well, are brought to life by being, well, those same real-life characters. You will be thinking probably even saying aloud to yourself, "This is so real, it must be a documentary!" And so it is, even if certain things appears to be either fudged or left out of our purview.

Sergio is still grieving over his late wife (who died fairly recently) and so welcomes this change of venue and this job to take his mind off his grief. And his own family members are clearly concerned for his well-being and for the legality of what is going on here. Still, the ease of Sergio's spying and the laxity of the retirement home toward what is happening with Sergio takes a certain suspension of disbelief. 

What happens as Sergio adjusts to his new home and its occupants to him, as well as how the relationship between him and his boss begins to change combine to make the movie quite special. Plus, what he and we learn about the travails of even a senior retirement residence as pleasant is this one is enough to turn your head and make you think and think again -- about your own life and those of others less fortunate.

By the conclusion of The Mole Agent, you'll have smiled a lot, been surprisingly moved and very pleased that you took the chance on this lovely little movie. From Gravitas Ventures and running just 90 minutes, the doc hits digital VOD and Blu-ray/DVD this Tuesday, September 1 -- for rental or purchase.