A Man on the Inside is a comedy show on Netflix that has quickly become popular thanks to its unique premise and charming lead performance by Ted Danson. The show is about Charles, a retired widower played by Danson, who responds to a job ad that seems easy. A private investigator hires him to go undercover in a retirement community and get information about the people who live there and work there. But as Charles gets used to his new surroundings, he gets involved in a strange case involving a stolen family heirloom, which leads him to make some surprising personal discoveries.
The show takes place in the bustling Pacific View Retirement Residence, located in San Francisco. But while the location is central to the series, you won’t find the Pacific View Retirement Residence listed as an actual retirement community. This begs the question: is this fictional facility based on a real place?
A Man on the Inside and Its Connection to Real Life
The show is based on the 2020 Chilean documentary The Mole Agent, which is based on a true story about a private investigator who breaks into a retirement home in Chile to look into claims of elder abuse. When Mike Schur turned the documentary into a comedy series, he made some big changes. For example, the setting went from Chile to San Francisco. Schur said that the name of the retirement home in the documentary was “San Francisco,” which is why the city was chosen for the adaptation. Schur also thought that San Francisco’s long history of architecture would be a good setting for his character Charles, who is an engineer.
The Pacific View Retirement Residence Is a Work of Fiction
Even though the Pacific View Retirement Residence is a big part of A Man on the Inside, it’s not really in San Francisco. A Man on the Inside was mainly filmed in two locations: San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Cathedral Apartments at 1201 California Street in San Francisco’s famous Nob Hill neighborhood were used to film the outside of this made-up building. The interior scenes, on the other hand, were filmed on a set in Los Angeles that was meant to look like the place where Charles is.
The building is based on real assisted living and retirement communities, even though it’s not real. Schur and his team did a lot of research on these kinds of facilities in Los Angeles and Southern California. They talked to staff and residents to make sure the story was true to life. As part of this, they learned about the daily tasks that go into running a place like Pacific View and the mental and emotional toll it takes on the people who care for its residents.
Real Locations Behind the Fiction
The Pacific View Retirement Residence is a made-up place, but the show talks about real places. You can find a real senior living community in Bandon, Oregon, with the same name. Even though it takes place in San Francisco, this makes it feel even more real. The creators’ attention to detail, both in terms of where the show takes place and how life is portrayed in retirement communities, shows how important they are in real life.
Schur also got ideas from the real-life Chilean facility shown in the documentary. For example, she used the problems the residents face and the different levels of care. The San Francisco Pacific View Residence, on the other hand, gives its residents more freedom than the real Chilean facility, where residents are limited in where they can go and need permission to leave.
No, the Pacific View Retirement Residence is not a real place in the world of A Man on the Inside. But it adds a lot to the story. The show looks at themes of getting older, community, and sudden changes in a person’s life through the lens of this made-up retirement community. There are some similarities between the show and a real documentary, but the show makes some changes to make the retirement home more charming and real. Fans of the show like how it mixes humor with real-life information about assisted living. The story takes place in the fictional but very well imagined Pacific View Retirement Residence.
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