Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Crwthod
A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
SnoopyStyle
Director Michael Apted returns to interview this group of people 7 years later. They are 28 now, and things keep changing. We are now further and further away from the social studies aspects of the original idea. These are great stories about real people. The phrase that you can't make this up is really coming true here. There are still questions about school, about money, about class system, but they are almost distractions now. These people are not just about the stereotypes although some do try very hard.Neil is now fully gone into the wilds and alone. Suzy has finally found happiness and it's obvious now how miserable she was in the first 3 films. Everybody else is changing in their lives in different ways. Charles has dropped out of the series all together. The series is getting more and more fascinating.
runamokprods
The 'Up Series' represents one of the most fascinating and unusual uses of film in cinema history - a documentary life-long chronicle of the lives of 14 people starting at 7 years old, revisiting them every seven years through age 49 (so far). While I could quibble, wishing for a bit more depth here and there (especially with the women, where there's a bit too much emphasis on love and marriage at the expense of all else), it's really an astounding, moving, frightening and uplifting document. There's no way to watch this remarkable series of films without reflecting deeply on one's own life, and how you have changed (and stayed the same) over your own lifetime. While Michael Aped deserves every bit of credit he's received for this amazing piece of cultural anthropology, it's important to note this first film, 7 Up,was actually directed by Paul Almond, and Apted was a that point a researcher for the project.
asc85
I originally saw 49Up, which led me to want to see 7Up and 7 plus 7. And I liked 21UP enough to want to see 28UP. And this one, for whatever reason, was a bore. Whether that's a function of what is happening to the people at 28, or a function of Apted's direction and editorial choices, I don't know. All I know is that I was pretty bored within the first 20 minutes of the picture, and at over 2 hours and 15 minutes, I knew I still had a long way to go.Of course Neil is the most compelling of the players, and I got a kick out of Suzi's transformation from 21 to 28! But other than that, I thought it was all pretty boring.I'm sure I'll see 35UP and 42UP to catch up to the series, but after 28UP, I'm much less motivated to do so.
moonspinner55
Filmmaker Michael Apted's pet project for British television (released theatrically in several countries) is an occasionally fascinating, sometimes boring documentary which spans many years as Apted interviews a handful of British schoolchildren in the 1950s, catching up with them again eight years later and so on until the kids have reached the age of 25. For the sake of cinema, it is a shame that the subjects whom Apted initially chose for his portrait turned out to be such colorless personalities. There are a few tragedies which unfold with the heartrending beauty of fictional melodrama, yet this installment runs out of intriguing moments long before it is over. Apted is to be commended, nevertheless, for a brilliant cinematic idea. Followed in due time by "35 Up", "42 Up", "49 Up". **1/2 from ****
