Death has no dominion in America, where even saying the word out loud is considered bad form, and everyone is obliged to pretend it never happens. Only in the US could The Villages exist: a purpose-built retirement community, or “Disneyworld for retirees”, as its possibly unhinged creator put it.

Now home to 20,000-odd souls, it is a kind of baby boomer-themed holiday camp from which all hardships and negativity have been expunged. Its downtown areas resemble something from a 1950s Hollywood film, and the buildings come replete with faux cracks, bogus foundation stones and even spurious histories.

Its inhabitants, who seem overwhelmingly white, pass the time playing golf, doing water ballet, limbo-dancing or perfecting the fine art of golf cart precision drills. Anything to distract themselves from that remorselessly ticking clock.

There’s even a club that consists entirely of women named Elaine. “When you live here, you kind of become younger,” insists one biology-defying resident. “You come here to live, not to pass away,” says another. Those who do have the bad taste to snuff it are smuggled out in the dead of night, no doubt, so as not to spook the horses.

Life is impossibly positive in The Villages, where a dedicated TV channel ensures that the news is always good, the weather always fine (even when it isn’t). But there are cracks beneath this exhausting veneer of positivity, and Lance Oppenheim’s winning and funny documentary tells the stories of some inhabitants who find the going tough.

When we first meet Reggie, one admires his chutzpah. A dapper gent in his late seventies, he takes recreational drugs, does yoga on the lawn, spouts half-baked hippie philosophies and tests the endless patience of his sainted wife, Annie. But Reggie will end up in court on a cocaine possession charge, and must get his act together or face jail, and possibly divorce.

“When we got married,” Anne sighs, “he really was not so unique.” But for all his eccentricities, Reggie has moments of blinding clarity: “everyone knows we’re on the verge of death,” he says at one point, “but we’re all just ignoring it.”

In one scene, residents listen with polite distaste while a woman in the undertaking business tells them how investing in one’s final repose will ease the financial burden. Pay now, die later!

“You’re acting out a part,” says one perceptive widow, “day and night, you’re part of this fantasy.” Occasionally, an empty chair come canasta time hints at grimmer realities, but mostly the residents of The Villages smile hysterically and throw themselves into various age-defying activities.

Dennis, an 81-year-old Californian reprobate, lives in a van with his jumbled possessions and dreams of bagging a rich Villages widow and settling down. Not just anyone, mind: it will have to be “a woman I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen on the street with”.

Dennis, who knows no shame, will eventually consult a preacher to help him pray for connubial good fortune: his faith is rewarded, and a good natured widow appears. But will Dennis, who panics at the sight of a shopping list, be able to hack the numbing sameness of day-to-day domesticity? Probably not.

The immaturity of some of these men is breathtaking: it’s almost impressive to have lived so long and learned so little. The women have their heads screwed on, and my favourite is Barbara, a Massachusetts widow with huge soulful eyes who moved to The Villages a decade ago and now can’t afford to leave. Her husband Paul died just after they arrived, and ever since she’s had to face the dodderers’ Disneyland alone.

Hope springs when she meets a suave golf cart salesman, but his lines seem rehearsed and he fancies himself as a margarita-swilling Don Juan. Barbara’s lonely, and admits that “my mind is always wandering home, to Massachusetts”. The Villages clearly isn’t for everyone, and living there must feel like being on holiday — forever.

Oxygen ***

(Netflix, 101mins)

Those with a rat phobia, beware: white rodents (all actors’ equity members, no doubt) appear early and often in Oxygen, a nightmarish French sci-fi drama directed by Alexandre Aja. Those of a claustrophobic disposition should also give it the old sidestep, because it takes place entirely in the cramped interior of a cryogenic pod. Its inhabitant, Liz (Melanie Laurent), wakes with a start and has no idea how she got there or, more pressingly, how to get out.

In mournful tones that recall Marvin the Paranoid Android, the pod computer (voiced by Mathieu Amalric) informs her that her oxygen’s running out. Using the computer, she pieces together the details of her life: she was a scientist, and may have helped design the pods. And while the computer mutters darkly about euthanasia, Liz searches desperately for a means of escape.

Aja’s film covers ground previously explored by the nasty and overpraised Rodrigo Cortés horror Buried, and has late plot twists so audacious they could be considered shark-jumping. It works, just about, thanks to the energetic distress of Ms Laurent.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

End of Sentence ***

(ifi@home, 96mins)

Set mainly in Ireland, but as viewed by an Icelander, Elfar Adalsteins’ warm-hearted debut feature stars John Hawke and Logan Lerman as an American father and son at odds. When Frank Fogle’s wife Anna (Andrea Irvine) dies, he promises to bring her ashes back to Ireland and scatter them over a remote lake. He wants his son Sean (Lerman) to go with him, but he’s an angry young man who’s just out of jail and is not in a cooperative mood.

Eventually, Sean agrees, and the pair fly into Dublin to begin a supposedly solemn journey that quickly becomes a comedy of errors. Frank is a quiet man, and his reserve infuriates his hot-headed son, who blames him for various childhood grievances. Into this uneasy mix slinks Jewel (Sarah Bolger), a woman with a troubled past who attaches herself to Sean but may be on the make.

Nothing too dramatic happens thereafter, and the Ireland Frank, Sean and Jewel cross is full of trad musicians and winking aul’ fellas. But grounded acting and a decent storyline make it watchable, and John Hawke is superb as the repressed and unfailingly decent Frank.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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