“Some Sort of Heaven,” a documentary co-produced by The New York Instances, pierces the bubble of The Villages, a Florida retirement group northwest of Orlando that has grown to the scale of a small metropolis. The structure and even the native lore foster an phantasm of historical past.
Slightly than current a cross-section of this 30-square-mile golf-opolis, the director, Lance Oppenheim, making his first function, focuses on three units of characters.
Reggie and Anne, married for practically 5 a long time, have hit a tough patch. Whereas Reggie embraces tai chi and says he likes utilizing medication that get him “to a religious place,” Anne laments that his “sense of actuality has develop into much more out-there.” On their anniversary, he informs her that he has died and been reincarnated.
For Barbara, newly widowed, life in The Villages is troublesome with no companion. Dennis technically doesn’t stay there in any respect. He sleeps in a van and hopes to satisfy a “nice-looking woman with some cash.” (A guard who explains that The Villages isn’t functionally a gated compound cheerily greets drivers at an entrance with out checking names.)
Oppenheim finds no scarcity of visible and situational comedy, whether or not it’s in a gradual zoom on Dennis making a poolside transfer or courtroom video of Reggie ineptly defending himself earlier than a decide. (There’s little point out of politics; “Some Sort of Heaven” had its premiere a 12 months in the past, earlier than a lot of the protection of The Villages’ significance within the 2020 presidential marketing campaign.)
However Oppenheim resists simple misanthropy, exhibiting sudden empathy for individuals who have cocooned themselves from the skin world, solely to confront its complications anyway.
Some Sort of Heaven
Not rated. Working time: 1 hour 21 minutes. In theaters and obtainable to lease or purchase on Google Play, FandangoNow and different streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please seek the advice of the rules outlined by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention earlier than watching films inside theaters.
