As far as wish-fulfillment fantasies go, Hollywood might be the ultimate vendor. Much of the rise of superhero culture can be attributed to a growing sense of hopelessness in the real world, where the desperation to find powerful individuals who can change the world is simply a pipe-dream. In mainstream Hollywood, these unrealistic and altogether juvenile representations of what is “good” can be provided through corporate and military-funded entertainment. There is however one particular place where such escapism and return to juvenile thinking manifests itself in a real-world setting. No, I’m not talking about Disney World, but the place next door – it’s called “The Villages” and it’s America’s largest retirement community. In Lance Oppenheim’s playful and otherworldly documentary Some Kind of Heaven, we get a peculiar glimpse of the lives of people seeking to escape into something utopian and idealistic with varying results but a common sense of isolation.
The Ruling Class
It’s ironic right off the bat that The Villages represent the kind of commune system that Baby Boomers, the area’s catered demographic, grew up conditioned to despise. But this is America’s version of communism, colloquially known as the suburbs. The people of predominantly white, college-educated, upper-middle-class suburbs have been the ruling identitarian class since the 1950s and have infiltrated their cultural beliefs into pretty much every facet of culture in varying forms. Through instant gratification, overconsumption, and Ayn Randian isolationism, their general need to keep themselves thoroughly distracted so as to not even for a second contemplate the world at large or think deeply about anything beyond personal grievance has become American political doctrine.
Some Kind of Heaven follows a few select couples who live within The Village, representing the cracks in the façade. We see people like Anne and Reggie Kincer, whose marriage is slowly falling apart due to Ted’s decline into dementia and drug addiction. Barbara Locchiato, who feels like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anywhere after her husband passes. And Dennis Dean, who doesn’t even technically live in The Villages but in his van which he drives around trying to scheme single old women that he’s some hotshot so they’ll hitch up with him and he can mooch off their money. These are colorful characters because they’re from the real world even if that’s not what they want to be. Their very human issues are excerpts of the outside world within a place where everyone else is a bit player in a gigantic production of Pleasantville before Tobey Maguire zaps himself there.
Untouched by the World… or so it Seems
The documentary briefly discusses how The Villages came to be and from the words of the creator’s son, himself a Baby Boomer shown floating in a swimming pool, “there is a history that’s real and a history that is made up”. Oppenheim documents the facades of downtown and neighborhoods like a film set replicating the 60’s or 70’s – a veritable Leave it to Beaver style small town where everything looks the same every day and everything feels the same every day. A new couple moving into one of the houses say “it’s nice to go out into the yard and see all the houses and everything be the same”. This manufactured standardization is not unique to this particular retirement community, it’s a transcendent part of American capitalism. But here, it’s untouched by the world… or so it seems.
Dennis Dean is in some ways the central spoke of the entire documentary. He’s the link between the Villages and the post-2008 economic realities of the United States at large. He lives in his van, which is decked out quite nicely with all the amenities he’d need. He dresses swell, is charismatic, but he too is escaping the world. Like many people over the last decade who have come to realize that there really isn’t anything for them in America, that they’ve been abandoned and lied to their entire existence in this country and pin their hopes on things that aren’t real. Some turn to superhero movies funded by the Hollywood-military complex. Dean turns to The Villages. He’s looking for a rich heiress to sweep him off his feet into her mansion where he can die well-fed, in love, and happy.
Conclusion
Oppenheim flips between portraits of melancholic elderly folk clinging to delusion and amusingly choreographed sequences that parodically resemble the idealistic façade of suburban life. The synchronicity that exists in activities and lifestyles is a creation of fictional idealism that America promised and failed to deliver (the reality of course is that it was just a lie). The Villages is the American Dream come to life in a way only a children’s story can make so… and in the end, the generation existing in this fool’s paradise is adamant on remaining children with childlike outlooks on the world. Some of course, still fall through the cracks, and the illusion breaks. After all, The Villages still exist on Earth. Maybe that’s why Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are trying to get off the planet.
Have you seen Some Kind of Heaven? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!
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