One of the great things about Netflix is that you can try out some movies that you may never buy or rent, especially box sets. When we received the first two episodes of the “Up Series”, we weren’t sure what we were getting into and little did we know that we would get so totally sucked into to.
The concept is that a British television production company in 1964 filmed short Q&As with 14 children all aged 7 and from different social classes. There was no intent at the time to do anything but interview the kids and bring them together in London. However, they decided to go back when the kids were 14 and, then, continued on every 7 years. The second episode was called “7+7” but, starting with 21, they just refer to each one as “21 Up”, “28 Up” and so on. They are up to “42 Up” and 49 will be the next episode.
It’s hard to believe how fascinating it is to watch these people grow up and see the change in them each 7 years. Wendy pointed out that 7 years is enough time that there are significant changes from one episode to another. None of the subjects leads a public or particularly fascinating life. In all but one case, they are married and/or have started families and are just normal folks, so I still haven’t figured out what is so fascinating about it, but we have been captivated for the over 2 hour running time of each film since we watched the first one.
The first disc has the first two episodes on it, so that’s worth renting because you can see the dramatic difference from 7 to 14 years. And, if you like it, the others are equally interesting.
Anyway, we thought that we’d pass along a hint to our latest favorite movie. Enjoy! And, if you end up watching it, let us know what you think!