Assisted Living

I just want to preface this with the fact that everyone has an opinion. Making a film or a piece of art in general is respectable. You're putting yourself out there for people to tear you apart or love you. So, with the utmost respect...How is this being reviewed so well? The narrative was very weak and the documentary sections seemed to ramble on and on. How many times can a montage of old people's hands and feet be interesting? I felt nothing for the lead character at all and halfway through the film wanted to go to sleep. While combining documentary and fiction film is an interesting concept, it totally doesn't work here. It seems like something patched together.

I empathize with a few reviewers who have described what it is like to put a parent in a nursing home. My brother is a doctor, and we recently had to put our father, a war veteran, into assisted living; this is such a pertinent theme today; American families trying to help aging parents. (With no help from insurance companies).

This indie film is well-presented, in that Todd, well portrayed, is a caring person, disillusioned with his life and job.

He empathizes with an Alzheimer's patient, Mrs. Perlman. She misses her son, and for some reason identifies with Todd. We see the cold impersonal staff at the home, as Mrs. Perlman tries to make a phone call, and the nurse on duty patronizes her, telling her to go to her room and lie down.

Kudos to the director, addressing a taboo subject. This film is one of the few worth buying, I was very moved by the performances (some of which are real patients at an assisted living facility in Kentucky). 9/10.

I saw this movie at a Gen Art screening in New York and loved it. It is basically a first-time work for this director who shows impressive maturity and sensitivity for someone in his late 20's (and impressive organizational ability to pull it off).

The best way to describe it is as a portrait of aging. It is not really judgemental, it is affectionate. Some reviewers thought he was criticizing the nursing home it was set in; I don't. It's not really One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The film's main protagonist (a slacker who smokes weed on the way to work but bonds well with the old people), probably would get fired in real life, and probably nobody but him would get too upset about it. (I have a friend in real life who is a carbon copy of the main character, and in mid-life has settled into a low-paying job as a janitor in a small art museum, where people understand his limitations but accept him for who he is.) So all in all I found the film to be extremely realistic.

What got to me were the frequent closeups of hands, as an old woman attempted to sew or knit or play cards and was having difficulty doing many of the things we take for granted. Really the film is about those quiet little difficulties and what life is like when you're pretty old and almost done. This is very sad and the film brought out the sadness in me. But it is part of life and I think watching this film puts it on the table and makes it easier to accept that people you love do grow old and lose their capacities and eventually die. That's just the way it is!

I complemented the director at the Q&A afterwards. I wanted to buy a copy to show friends and family but they're still trying to get regular distribution. My guess is you might see it on A&E some day but it probably won't get much play other than that and won't make it to video, so I hope they will get around to self-distributing it at some point. (And now that this is out of his system, I'll be curious to see what the second act is for the writer/director, or whether this will be a one-hit wonder for him.)

Saw this at the pre-release screening in NYC. Why do people think that only stoners, misfits and screw-ups show "humanity?" Todd the janitor was not really kind to the old people; the care-takers who follow the rules and show up every day deserve the real credit in "assisted living." The director answered questions after the screening and his heart is in the right place but he is perhaps overly influenced by "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and others in the genre. He did get some good performances from his real-life residents and captured the way these facilities are run. Particularly good was the administrator who needs a bottle of bourbon--the film was shot in Kentucky--to get through the day.

"Assisted Living" is a subtle and moving portrait of individuals trying to reach out to each other within the rigid, bureaucratic realities of a nursing home.

Brilliantly filmed within an actual facility, using long walks down endless corridors much as Gus Van Sant did in "Elephant," the realism is palpable, framed by "The Office"-style mockumentary interviews with the staff and other interactions that have the honest feel of situational spontaneity.

But debut writer/director Elliot Greenebaum lets us gradually understand each quirky character, literally warts and all. He raises some of the same issues of bland, controlling institutionalization of the disabled that "Rory O'Shea Was Here (Inside I'm Dancing)," but that focused on the young with options, or like a less exaggerated "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and this focuses on how the elderly have fewer options, particularly as Alzheimer's and physical ailments can slowly overtake them. He lets us quietly-yet with intense trepidation-- understand what assignment to different parts of the facility mean to the residents and the staff as he demonstrates how an institution becomes a complete social order.

Until I checked the IMDb I wasn't sure if the cast even had SAG cards or were excellent local amateurs. While Michael Bonsignore is very good as the stoner orderly whose simple human kindness in opening a door or picking up a telephone has unintended consequences, Maggie Riley as "Mrs. Pearlman" is breathtaking as the resident who connects with him, outshining Gena Rowlands "The Notebook," let alone Gloria Stuart in "Titanic," for creating a complex portrait of woman who is still holding on to some reality before she goes out not gentle into that good night.

The cinematography was fairly grainy, though that added to the documentary feel of a video diary. The music was excellent in helping to build up the tension around little things that are very emotional.

While you will cry, you are left less depressed than sympathetic for the indomitability of the human spirit in the face of the inevitable. I remember a seminar I went to about the disabled where the facilitator said that we are all only temporarily abled. This should be required viewing for anyone who has (or will have) institutionalized relatives.