Everyone wants to retire to Florida, right? Warm days, beautiful beaches, and lots of activities for everyone of all ages. In fact, there are many communities in Florida that are geared towards those who are 55+ and are set up to be pockets of paradise.
We talked in our product review this week about some of the bigger retirement communities in Florida, but if you want to get an in-depth of what it’s actually like to live in one of these retirement villages, we recommend catching Some Kind of Heaven on Hulu.
Setting the Scene
Set in Florida’s 130,000-residents-strong The Villages, this documentary highlights the countless activities and parties residents enjoy. While The Villages is a gated community, it’s basically a gated city for retirees. Featuring everything from pools and pickleball courts to nightclubs, supermarkets, and restaurants, residents never need to leave their gates.
Some Kind of Heaven not only shows what it’s like to live in the community, but zeroes in on a few of their stories and not all is well in the suburb that has no children and no slums.
In this documentary, we meet married couple Anna and Reggie. Together for 47 years, it’s not always the happiest of marriages. He complains that Anna is too devoted to her athletic activities, but she has to put up with his regular drug use (which lands him in legal troubles).
We also get to know Barbara, recently widowed and moved from Boston, who’s staving off her loneliness with acting workshops, tambourine lessons, and mixers, hoping to find a new partner.
Then there’s Dennis, who doesn’t live in The Villages, but in his van in the parking lot (when he’s not shooed away). He wants to find a sugar mama to fund his lifestyle and has some high standards for said future lady.
Why You Might Like It
Some Kind of Heaven isn’t just about living in a retirement village. It’s about the lives of four third agers at different stages of their lives, trying to have the best third age they can. Whether or not they succeed is up for your own judgement.
Ranked one of the best documentaries of 2020, we’d highly recommend this deep dive. And at only an hour and 22 minutes, it’s worth the time investment!
