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You can’t ask for a richer documentary subject than The Villages, the huge Florida-based retirement community that’s home to over 120,000 seniors and operates as its own stand-alone, self-contained AARPverse. What started as a mobile home park in the 1970s began to develop into an ever-expanding property complex that provided people with a luxurious resort-style experience throughout their fall years. (If this sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because of the role he played in the 2020 presidential campaigns.) The fact that he was dubbed “Disneyworld for Retirees” is no coincidence – his Founder, Howard S. Schwartz, hired a company to design a mid-20th century Town Square, much like the old-fashioned, fabricated Main Street you’ll see at these nearby amusement parks. For a hefty price, people of a certain age can sip “a fountain of youth” with a familiar American vibe. This does not hide the idea that he bowed to the idea of nostalgia for a baby boomer. It’s the hook.
Buy a home or condo here in the 30 square mile expanse, and you can join the rowing team, do water aerobics, take Bollywood dance lessons, or Tae Kwon Do. There are grocery stores and golf courses, cinemas and shopping centers, dozens and dozens of restaurants, bars and nightclubs; there are many clinics to treat STDs, the number of which would apparently be off the charts within the community at any given time. (Whether you hear someone call this geriatric venereal epidemic a “scandal” or an “urban legend” depends on who you talk to.) You don’t need a car; everything you could possibly want is just a short golf cart ride away. The only thing forbidden are children. “It’s different from most closed communities,” says a cheerful welcome at the official entrance to the villages. “It’s a community with doors!”
A kind of paradise, Lance Oppenheim’s tour of “Florida’s friendliest hometown” isn’t particularly interested in the idea of selling this generic idea of a bright and happy permanent vacation for those 65 and over. If any other documentary wants to delve into the sociology of this elderly Stepford’s feedback loop, it’s still here for the picking. What his formalistic and consciously surreal look behind the curtain does instead is choose three case studies and perform them with them, each serving to undermine the idea that this paradise on earth is a Nirvana. one size fits all. Seniors are not doing well.
First up, there’s Anne and Reggie Kincher, a couple who have been married for 47 years and, as the film catches up with them, appear to be heading for a wall. She spends her days on the pickleball field or at some other group sport activity. He’s a bit more lonely and fills his solo hours by making up for lost time in the hallucinogen-taking department. At first, Reggie seems to find inspiration by expanding his mind and letting his last minute monster flag fly. Once disturbing illusions that he’s dead, God, or a combo of the two begin to kick in, things take an extremely strange and possibly dangerous turn.
Then there is Barbara Lochiatto, who planned to move from Massachusetts to the villages with her husband and ended up moving as a widow. Contrary to the smiling, beaming testimonials from so many residents – although the film’s penchant for making it all a bit suspicious means you’ll never mistake it for a sales pitch or infomercial – Barbara doesn’t feel like she’s in the spotlight. paradise. A stranger among the many 70-year-old singles, Parrothead revelers and tambourine players in the living room, this woman seems to feel like she has been sold a bill for merchandise. “It’s like living in a bubble,” she complains, meaning that she is one of the few who identifies the main feature of the community as a bug.
Speaking of singles: meet Dennis Dean. A good operator from California, he doesn’t live in the villages; he’s just hunting over there. This silver-haired Lothario’s plan is to meet a wealthy resident (or two, three, or a dozen) and try to settle down with someone who can allow him to indulge in a life of endless cocktails at the edge. of the swimming pool. Other than that, he’ll settle for someone who’s pretty and let him crash into their house so he doesn’t have to keep sleeping out of his van. Imagine “Freebird,” if the song’s protagonist finally decided he wanted to settle down in the eighties and found that his alluring charm had curdled slightly.
Pinball between these three stories with impeccably composed interludes of dancers and precision golf cart drilling crews filling its 1:33 square frame (so much the better to make you feel like you’re looking at something under a microscope slide), A kind of paradise skirts just south of patronize and slightly northeast to have a bigger agenda. Oppenheim does not want to bury or praise these people who have decided to indulge in senior hedonism. He’s more interested in the human aspect of those people who walked into that great olive garden of Eden and found it insufficient, or at least, to make foul-smelling art of the common hangover – whether country-club tables. kitsch or strangely moving scenes of gracious grandparents engaging in HAM activities. It’s a mood, as children say. And then, out of nowhere, the film will strike you with the emotional toll of its slightly tarnished and scuffed golden years. Come for the sneers, he seems to be saying. Stick around for the unexpected lump in your throat.
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