49 Up

When 21-year-old Granada Television researcher Michael Apted began tracking the lives of 14 English children from various classes and backgrounds, could he have imagined he'd still be following them half a century later? Probably not. And yet here they are at 49, old enough to have grandchildren the age they were when they first began answering questions about their lives and aspirations in the early 1960s. And while having seen earlier installments in the Up series makes this film richer and more resonant, it's structured so a newcomer can jump right in, with clips from the preceding five installments artfully edited together into "previously on"-style montages. Of ...