Review: 35 Up

If you've never seen any of the installments in this series - 7 Up, 7 Plus 7 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up and 49 Up - then you have a huge treat ahead of you on the day when you see one of them for the very first time. Vicki, Tammy and I had viewed a few of them, over the years, but generally out of order. Since buying the DVD collection, we've been slowly working our way through the series in chronological order.

Director Michael Apted has created one of the most compelling documentary series ever attempted, following, as it does, the lives of roughly a dozen British citizens as they grow up from age 7. He checks back with them every 7 years, with the latest installment featuring the group at age 49. This review is of 35 Up, the 5th movie in the run.

One of the first things we noticed about our familiar cast of real-life men and women was that many of them looked older than you'd expect for people in their mid-30s. My reaction in watching them was that several of them seemed to be my age, but that's off by almost a decade. I suspect that part of the reason for that is simply lifestyle, and more specifically the tough go of it that some of the working class poor in the series have endured. I imagine there's also an aspect of seeing them as children, teenagers, and younger adults, all in flashbacks during the film, that can make them seem artificially older as they age before your eyes.

This segment also begins to capture the rite of adulthood relating to losing one's parents, as about half of the subjects relate stories of a mother or father - or both - passing away in the time since 28 Up. Not surprisingly, most of the group has also begun their own families, creating some eerie reflections whenever you see a son or daughter about the right age to evoke comparisons to what their parent looked and acted like, back in 7 Up.

As you might expect, the main attraction of the Up Series continues to be the gratification of seeing what changes have occurred in the lives of these oh-so-familiar folks that you've never actually met. You can't help but have your favourites, after all, after spending the number of hours with them that you've accumulated by this point. The handful still single at 35 - kind, giving Bruce who pointedly never uses the female pronoun when describing his hopes for finding that special someone; and Neil, whose thread-thin subsistence of a life is dependent on social programs as he seemingly hasn't had a paying job in over a decade now - are joined by a few newly-divorced singles, reinforcing the pervasive feeling that many of them have failed to find anything resembling happiness as they enter into 'early mid-life.'

Even among the still-married bunch are those who joke about splitting up or make a compelling case for why they really were never right for each other to begin with. It was certainly a breath of fresh air when one of the spouses put forth her theory that these recurring appearances on the Up Series have actually helped their relationship, simply by reminding them every few years of how much in love they once were. Most of the rest seem to have reached the conclusion that having been chosen for the original documentary was one of the worst things that ever happened to them. And yet they continue to agree to appear...

It seems to me that this is the sort of social examination that watchers of shows like Survivor will claim to be interested in, when in... reality... that sort of spectacle hasn't one tenth of the depth that the Up Series puts on display every seven years. I fall in love with these stories all over again every time we watch a new installment, and I've yet to hear of anyone who gave one a try and wasn't wowed. I can't imagine that a better documentary series exists.

Rating: ****