49 Up

How do people change over time? Can the adult already be found in the child of seven? What account would you give that child of the life you have lived since? These are among the questions that have been explored, with mounting tension and surprise, in one of cinema's most remarkable enterprises, the Up series. In 1964, England's Granada Television "World in Action" team interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-olds from across England, asking them to describe their lives and hopes. Over the years, Granada has tenaciously pursued the Up series, revisiting the subjects every seven years as they have grown up, navigating the divides between childhood dreams and adult reality. As 49 Up revisits questions of love, marriage, career, class, and prejudice - deftly inter-cutting footage from earlier films with contemporary interviews - it discovers surprising ruminations about the Up film series itself as well as unexpected turns in individual lives as they unfold over time (2006, 135 minutes)