49 Up

In 1964, English filmmakers including director Michael Apted assembled a group of fourteen British children from various economic and social backgrounds, all age 7, and made a documentary about them called 7 Up. Every seven years afterward, Apted revisited the same children and made another documentary about them, chronicling their lives at the ages of 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now 49. The first installment that I watched, 28 Up, made me fall in love with these films. Much has been said about the series depicting the rigidity of the English class system, but as decades go by, the human element, the nature and personalities of the individuals being profiled, seems to be almost as important in affecting how their lives turned out. After seeing 28 Up and 35 Up, I remember feeling very bad for one kid who grew up coping with mental health problems and eventually wound up homeless, and thought leaving the theater that he wouldn't be alive for 42 Up. But by then he had moved to London and involved himself in local politics, a rewarding turn of events for him, and for the audience as well. The kids from the upper crust backgrounds have predictably had more affluent lives, and turned out to be the least forthcoming and most guarded on camera as adults, and less easy to warm up to. Some kids had deep seated feelings of shyness and insecurity that stayed with them as adults, and very publicly evaluating their failures and achievements every several years has been very difficult and uncomfortable for them. But even though some seem to resent the filmmakers' intrusion in their lives, they generally seem to understand the larger value of the series and twelve of the original fourteen kids continue to participate, even though they have misgivings or regrets about it. It's interesting to watch marriages and relationships suddenly begin and end, and usually people quickly remarry or find another relationship, often to someone more compatible and attractive. I identified most with the children who grew up to be teachers and academics, highly likable, intelligent people who realize that they aren't the most socially or economically successful but in many ways seem to be the most happy and fulfilled ones of the bunch. Despite their ambivalence, the participants deserve a big round of applause for letting us grow up and old along with them.