Assisted Living (2005)

Todd (Michael Bonsignore), the slack-jawed cipher at the center of Assisted Living, is an orderly at a nursing home, where he fights his boredom by smoking dope and rolling around in a wheelchair. How the audience will relieve its boredom is another story. The writer-director, Elliot Greenebaum, had the bright idea to shoot a comedy about old people at an actual assisted-living residence in Kentucky, so that he could paint wizened seniors into the background as unknowing human props. Parts of the film play like the world's slowest and most insensitive reality show (Who Wants to Be an Octogenarian?). The majority of it, however, is done with actors. When a sweet old lady (Maggie Riley) in the early stages of Alzheimer's gets a call from Todd, who toys with her by pretending to be her son, it's hard to say what, exactly, the filmmaker is going for, but it's a safe bet that he hasn't nailed it.