However, this particular home goes back decades, with a clientele largely made up of women who never married, had children or found their independence with careers.Īlberdi pegged the home as a portrait of a patriarchal generation. Men are usually dumped in homes, while women are kept with the children or grandchildren they raised. But eventually they ignore the crew’s presence and carry on, often fawning over Chamy, who was one of only a handful of men in that home.Īlberdi explained that the gender breakdown in this particular nursing home is not common in Chile. And the documentary became about the long-term care home’s social dynamic.Įarly scenes show the predominantly female residents watching the cameras suspiciously, reminding each other that those boom mics are listening in on their conversations, as if they too had secret agendas. Instead, Chamy befriended other residents and turned his attention to them. The gentle spy grew resentful of his boss and the covert job. Though he found his “target”, made contact and regularly checked in on her wellbeing, his undercover dispatches to Aitken grew less frequent. “Our heart was not in the case,” Alberdi said, explaining how her crew followed Chamy’s lead. Despite all the deception, the film ended up being far more honest than intended. That turns out to be closer to what the film became, since Chamy soon grew tired of spying. The staff were told that her crew was making a documentary about daily life in a nursing home. She already had a crew on scene before Chamy’s arrival.
But Alberdi felt he had the right disposition to be the film’s anchor, while embedded for months as the new resident in the senior home. The way he fumbles with tech in not so subtle ways lends the film much of its humour. Chamy couldn’t navigate the camera on an iPhone, which would be deemed an essential skill in nursing home spycraft. “I fell in love with Sergio,” she said, explaining that she convinced Aitken to hire the soft-spoken and gentle 83-year-old widower. When it came to that casting process, the documentary director did not take an impartial stance. The irony that entering a nursing home would be stimulating was not lost on Alberdi. But they jump at the opportunity to break their moldy routines and be mentally stimulated with a new gig. They’re baffled anyone would want to hire someone over 80. We see various seniors in the interview chair responding to the help wanted ad.
That led to a hilarious casting … erm … hiring process. The nursing home private eye, Alberdi said, is akin to the nanny cam.Īitken’s regular mole suffered a hip injury. These cases, Alberdi explained, are common, driven by the guilt of offspring who leave their parents in such institutions. They waited at Aitken’s office until the right case came along: a client wanted her mother watched to make sure she was being treated well inside a long-term care facility. “I always say my budgets are to pay the crew to wait until the things that we are waiting for happen,” Alberdi said. He waits until he can find proof, just as she waits until the right scene appears before her camera. He’s a former federal police investigator turned middle-aged private eye who had already handled four cases in nursing homes.Īs a documentary film-maker, Alberdi felt a connection to Aitken’s trade. That journey, which for Alberdi is the accumulation of 300 hours of footage, flies by breathlessly in a 90-minute film. Gradually, life chips away at the Pink Panther playfulness of the premise, and the film settles into a sombre look at ageing and desperately hanging on to human connection. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, follows the octogenarian Sergio Chamy who is hired by a private eye, Rómulo Aitken, to snoop around a nursing home.
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