Mark Reviews Movies: SOME KIND OF HEAVEN

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 14, 2021

Since its founding, the population of The Villages, a retirement community in Florida, has grown to the size of a large city. It looks like a certain brand of paradise or another description, put forth by director Lance Oppenheim's documentary Some Kind of Heaven.

Indeed, Oppenheim's movie does feel like a sales pitch at times, even if the ultimate point of the three stories presented here is that there's no real way to plan for life—even within the luxury and confinement of a planned community. The lives of these four people either seemed set or, based on their ages and dreams, should have seemed set before their respective arrivals at The Villages.

We first meet Anne and Reggie, a married couple whose relationship has come under strain since moving to the community. Anne is content with her life in The Villages, but Reggie has found himself uncertain about what to do with his new life in retirement. While she plays pickleball and spends time with friends, he has started a journey to discover himself by using an assortment of drugs.

Barbara was supposed to live out her retirement years with her husband. When he died and her savings ran out, though, she took a job working at The Villages, and now, Barbara is open to the idea of finding love again.

Meanwhile, David has been unmarried—as far as he's willing to say—for his entire life. He can't afford a place in the community, but that doesn't stop him from visiting daily, looking for a rich woman to movie in with and living out of his van.

Oppenheim gets close to these people, who are pretty open and honest about the disappointments later life has brought to them. David's story plays as a melancholy comedy, as he flirts with assorted women but also suggests he's ready to die if his plans don't work. In a sort of romantic comedy, Barbara meets a nice man and learns to be more relaxed. Reggie, as it turns out, has some underlying medical issues, which makes the movie's amused fascination with his drug habit feel a bit distasteful by the end.

The people in Some Kind of Heaven are undeniably fascinating. Even so, the movie leaves us feeling the need for more—more about this place, some other resident, about the subjects themselves.

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