"Old people's homes," now euphemistically called "assisted living facilities," are nursing homes where the elderly are parked in the United States because dysfunctional families do not take care of them. Assisted Living, directed by Elliot Greenebaum, is a semifictional exposé of Masonic Home, an actual facility at Louisville, Kentucky. The camera records interviews with the staff and some of the residents and, as well, takes filmviewers on a tour of a campus, which consists of clean dormitory-type rooms, a well-organized dining room, an activity room, and attractive landscaping. Clearly, those in charge try to do their jobs professionally, but drinking and potsmoking by the staff is a measure of the frustration over the zoo that they run. Most of the time the elderly residents eat, sleep, and sit in wheelchairs aimlessly, detached from the world outside. Assisted Living, however, changes from boring documentary to exciting drama when twenty-seven-year-old Todd (played by Michael Bonsignore), an orderly at the facility, decides to amuse some of the inmates--and himself. For example, when octogenarian Mrs. Pearlman (played by Maggie Riley) tries to make a telephone call to her son in Australia from a nurse's station, Todd picks up a telephone extension, pretends to be her son, and has a conversation. Mrs. Pearlman wants her son to visit her and to take her home, and Todd obliges by promising to do so, but she is in tears when the conversation ends. Later, he scoops her up from her bed, takes her out to the grassy area, convinces her that they are in Australia, and enjoys watching her brighten up, even though nursing personnel inevitably will return her to her room. Mrs. Pearlman, in short, is a paradigm case for the lonely elderly who barely cling to life yet are left to die in facilities that are managed by well-intentioned people. Assisted Living, in short, asks why Americans allow the elderly to be treated so expendably. What the film does not mention is that the cost of importing nurses into a family's residence for twenty-four-hour care is much less than Mrs. Pearlman's bill at a privately funded facility, whereas the quality of nursing homes supported fully by taxpayers is dreadfully inferior to both options. Nevertheless, as a portrayal of the secret of how the elderly are abandoned to a meaningless existence, the Political Film Society has nominated Assisted Living for an award as best film exposé of 2005. MH
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