This is hardly a new idea. Many film makers over the years have done something similar and sone have committed even longer periods of time. SEVEN comes to mind, where the amount of time devoted to the project is so long that the original film makers died and it had to be completed by others. And here is the problem with this short. If you are going to do this you might as well put some effort into it. The questions start of revealing but soon turn boring as more or less the same 5 questions are asked, revealing very little. Tge most shocking moment occurs early on at 3. But apart from that (which is never really followed up) there's very little of interest. Second most interesting/annoying is the time between 14 and 15 where Ella suddenly picks up the incredibly annoying teenage girl habit of saying 'like' after every 3 words. This gad never been part of her vocabulary or speech patter for 12 years. I'm pleased to say she seemed to have lost is within 2 years and must have been solely due to peer pressure and the group of friends she had at that time. Mildly interesting. But that's it. 17 years of filming and nit much of interest to show for it. In other similar projects we see people grow, change jobs, meet parters, have children, fall on hard time, die... in this film all we really get is a young girls explanation of what she thinks power means growing up through the years... and it's not very profound. So a missed opportunity to ask some really insightful questions and see how Ella's attitudes changed. Having said all that what does come through most is that this was an interesting project for their family to do... does it deserve I terbational release? No. There's more interesting footage on just about every family's video camera tapes up and down the country.
