49 Up

“Give me the child at seven and I will give you the man.” With that Jesuit maxim in mind, Michael Apted and his crew set out to interview fourteen seven-year-old British children from different class strata and return every seven years to gauge their progress. Throughout the resulting Up series—Seven Up, Seven Plus Seven, 21 Up, and so on through the recent 49 Up—the number of participants has shrunk, but the most fascinating remain, from Suzy—who can’t answer questions about a boyfriend at 14, at 21 loathes the thought of marriage, becomes by 28 a mother, and at 49 is the matriarch of an empty house—to Neil, the young astronaut wannabe who slowly descends into mental illness, becomes homeless at 28, and later finds moderate success as a local politician. “Every seven years, a little pill of poison is injected,” says one of these brave souls about Apted’s project, but the end result is a collection of some of the most powerful documentary films ever made.