Some Kind of Heaven: NZIFF Review

Director Lance Oppenheim's peek behind the curtains of The Villages in Florida in the US is a crafty little doco that finds a way of inveigling itself under your skin.

Some Kind of Heaven starts with a series of golf carts being organised in a synchronised pattern as someone barks orders from a loud hailer and from then on, Oppenheim leads you through the lives of some of the residents.

Taking in a widowed woman, a long-married couple and a non-resident who believes he's still got the right to be a player, the doco somehow proffers up the feeling that The Villages is some kind of cult, with quick cut shots showing residents involved in activities, expounding the joys of it all, but never once looking like the emotion is there.

But scratch beneath the surface and Some Kind of Heaven unveils a kind of nagging sadness within its subjects. 

The long-married couple appeal to be unravelling; the widower worries she's never going to find anyone else, and the non-resident believes his way of life is best until it comes crashing down around his ears.

There are bittersweet touches here in Oppenheim's doco, but none of them are manipulated for the viewing pleasure of the audience. Each story plays out with poignancy and disturbing flair.

Part of the joy of Some Kind of Heaven is seeing it unfurl and its poignant surprises - but its look beneath the polished veneer of OAP happiness is as disturbing and as tragic as they come, without ever feeling exploitative.

If anything, Oppenheim's managed to scratch below the surface of the Stepford Wives-esque perfection, and what's laid out is slickly delivered, cut for an eye with the humanity as well as the humour and tragedy, and is really a damning indictment of this Florida utopia.