“According to its promotional brochure ‘The Villages is a collection of quaint retirement neighborhoods located in the heart of Florida nestled between two beautiful coastlines.’ It is also probably one of the largest communities of ‘over 55s’ in the world. The Villages made headlines recently when a cavalcade of golf carts flying Trump flags collided with a group of Biden supporters but this brouhaha proves what young filmmaker Lance Oppenheim found in The Villages when he made Some Kind of Heaven– a lively group of feisty seniors negotiating age perkily. Produced by Darren Aronofsky and The New York Times Some Kind of Heaven is a refreshing, surprising and enormously entertaining portrait of a community where the sun seems never to set.”–Laurence Kardish, FilmColumbia co-artistic director and former senior film curator at MoMA
“This highly entertaining documentary captures the near-surrealism of a prefab senior playground, while also finding some poignant human interest in focusing on a few personalities for whom the concept isn’t quite working.” — Dennis Harvey, Variety
“The dreamy, orchestral score with harp inflections that invoke Old Hollywood captures the tension between the sunny, polished exterior of The Villages and its harsher day-to-day realities. Oppenheim and composer Ari Balouzian conceived of the score as an integral part of the story they wanted to tell, and it shows. Documentary filmmaking could use a lot more thoughtfully executed musical scores like this one” — Beandrea July, The Hollywood Reporter
Lance Oppenheim
Darren Aronofsky, The New York Times