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Notes -
I actually watched this all the way through. I enjoyed it - very interesting film.
Initially, I was disposed to think the filmmaker was pushing a particular narrative. All the emphasis on guns, Trump supporters, delusional old people pretending they are still young and hot, seemed intended to paint everyone in The Villages as a white MAGA boomer - you know, those people. Surely not everyone in The Villages is a Republican (we get to see one scene of an anti-Trump protester waving a sign and being heckled by the Trump supporters), and I'm sure not all of them are partying decadently and ignoring their grandchildren, which is clearly the message being conveyed by the film.
After seeing the director interviewed after the film, I think she really was mostly focusing on things that fascinated her as a non-American. Obviously as a European she was fixated on all the guns, and she admits that she's politically on the other end of the spectrum from the Trump supporters, and yet she seems to have respected them. (They mention that everyone who appears in the film got to see the final cut and apparently no one felt they were being portrayed unfairly.) There is a bit of naive "European leftist meets American Republicans and discovers they aren't actually troglodytes," but in the end I don't think she set out with the intention of doing a "People of Walmart"-style mockumentary. But by her own admission, she did select the most interesting "characters."
I admit I felt the same discomfort and unease as many watching a bunch of old people partying like teenagers and rejecting any role as "family elder." But I think a lot of the negative reaction is a sort of instinctive revulsion that younger people feel watching old people trying to be sexy and partying when our image of them is grandma and grandpa bouncing grandkids on their knees. I don't think it's entirely fair to say it's all meaninglessness and hedonism. I mean, a life of eating out, drinking, and golfing sounds pretty empty to me, but they also talk about the fact that a lot of them are just taking up the hobbies they had to abandon when they were younger. They're taking belly dance classes, drumming classes, we see them playing games, a lot of them are doing athletic activites... is this meaningless hedonism? What should they be doing, bouncing grandkids on their knees? Living in an extended clan isn't for everyone, and it's a fair objection that grandma and grandpa don't necessarily want to spent their golden years providing free babysitting services.
I think one of them also made an excellent point, that by virtue of being able to afford the Villages, the biggest gift they are giving their children is not being dependent on them and not forcing their children to make all these decisions about how to take care of their parents.
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