Certainly not to be confused with the much-ballyhooed 2019 horror feature The Lodge, this quiet, unassuming activist documentary from director Pam Walton and Ruth Carranza introduces us to Fountaingrove Lodge, an LGBTQ-friendly retirement community in Santa Rosa, California, with a brief but intimate and enlightening look into the lives of those residents—not all of whom are LGBTQ—who have chosen the communal comforts of “the Lodge” to see out their golden years.
Although the Lodge does have plenty in common with your average old folks’ home, many of the residents are proud Stonewall-era veterans of the movement and have seen huge sea changes in gay lifestyles and in how the LGBT community is perceived by the straight establishment.
The film begins on the premise that nearly a third of all LGBTQ senior citizens will feel the unfortunate need to “re-closet” themselves when seeking senior housing: thus, Fountaingrove stakes its claim as the first retirement community to offer both assisted and independent living options for LGBTQ seniors. Along the way, we meet the first resident, a 92-year-old former public school teacher who admits he had never been able to realize his true identity until he got to Fountaingrove.
But as the film progresses we also learn that Fountaingrove is not always the geriatric paradise that it at first appears to be. For one, the residents, most of whom are on fixed incomes, have to deal with the unease of periodic fee hikes. Then there are the dangers of the natural world around them: area wildfires in 2017 came way too close for comfort, forcing the residents to evacuate the premises for weeks. And of course, at Fountaingrove there are the normal everyday confrontations with mortality—with your fellow residents getting ill or passing away.
But The Lodge ends on a positive note, reiterating this specialized retirement community as a sanctuary for LGBTQ senior citizens, offering a safe space for self-expression and social interaction that many of the Fountaingrove community had never really experienced anywhere else. It is a timely documentary that spotlights a significant but often overlooked community with touching empathy. Aud: C, P.