Behind the gates of a palm tree-lined fantasyland, four residents of America's largest retirement community, The Villages, FL, strive to find solace and meaning.
Director:
Lance Oppenheim
From metacritic.com
Behind the gates of a palm tree-lined fantasyland, four residents of America's largest retirement community, The Villages, FL, strive to find solace and meaning.
This stuff in this documentary feels faker than most non-documentaries, and I appreciate it being filmed like a scripted feature to further this feeling. It's not that you think the whole thing is staged, but rather that's how absurd the subject matter is. The movie is a horrifying and hilarious dreamscape. One that is way too possible to not be a nightmare. How is this real? How did these people get like this? And, most importantly, how do I avoid it like the plague? This documentary is funnier than would be the sitcom version of the same story, precisely because you know it isn't a sitcom. Life can and has become just a checklist for a lot of people. Though the subjects have their redemptive moments of vulnerability, I mostly walked away with viewing their stories as a cautionary tale. Life is short, but not at the villages.