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Great Film overall

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Yes, you CAN view 42Up without having seen 35Up, 28Up, etc. But it would be wrong. Because with each film, less of the past can be shown as each person's past increases -- thus you get only the highlights of each past: e.g., teenage Suzy's dad's death, which enormously affected her; the orphanage-reared Paul's move to Australia, and his marriage to an Oz woman with a big hearty family; Nick's move to the US -- with no class system surrounding him, he's been able to avoid what the rest are still struggling with, but is it worth the high cost of seeing his Yorkshire family no more than every other year?The participants were all born circa 1956, so age 49 will be around 2005. There are some pasts I hope we hear less of in 49Up: I don't want to hear any more about Tony's casual infidelities, thank you very much. His wife's reactions to his self-justifications ("I'm not proud of it, but every man does it"...that kind of lame excuse), and her silent yet profound unhappiness and betrayal, are excruciating. Besides, these days, infidelity is simply a welcome mat to self-transformation into a disease vector. But I would genuinely like to know how Neil descended into alarming solitariness and depression without getting therapy in what was then one of the world's largest venues for socialized medicine. (I hope by now he's been able to adjust his brain chemistry. Thank God for Bruce, another 'Up' man who befriended and helped Neil.)These people become so known to us that every seven years it's like renewing acquaintance. Such fame has not been entirely welcome, though Tony has been able to parlay it into parts as an actor. It must feel uncomfortable to have complete strangers know what you were like at 14...an age most of us feel sincerely relieved to have left behind. That the ones who continue to say yes to Michael Apted and his crew generally handle their filming with immense dignity and humor speaks volumes about their generosity -- and their curiosity. How are the others doing? How am I compared to seven years ago? What have I learned during those years? What can I learn from this episode?For the 'Up' people: thank you for your willingness to open your lives and homes, to answer intrusive questions, to demonstrate your values and what's brought you through, and to give us all a better understanding of what human growth is really about.

Although it might not be readily apparent to those who only know Michael Apted as the director of The World Is Not Enough, Michael Apted is in reality a skilled and experienced director. Here, Apted returns to his famous documentary series, in which he has followed London children from age 7 onward, returning every 7 years to chronicle where they are currently in their lives. Suffice it to say that even the world's worst filmmaker couldn't remove the inevitable fascination such a project automatically generates interest in anyone interested in either documentaries about people or the differences between the London social classes. This time around (as the title indicates) the subjects are 42 years old, and we find them settling down. They seem to be doing fine for the most part, as even the formerly homeless subject gets a job - albeit a low paying local government job. Yet the movie needs a more ruthless editor- 42 Up is 139 minutes long. It'll interest you, but you'll keep looking at your watch.

I've only seen "28 Up" and "35 Up". Those were fascinating interesting films, dealing with all types of people and all types of issues in their lives. At ages 28 and 35 people are trying to see where to go what to do, etc. By 42 they're all married or bringing up kids. So the whole movie is about dealing with marriage and kids. Fascinating if you're one of two--dull if you're not. It started off well enough, but it seemed to keep rehashing itself (if I had heard ONE more comment about how hard it is to make marriage work...). About half of it was interesting, and it always a kick seeing these people literally grow up, but it's run it's course. Let's hope there's not a 49 Up!

This film and its predecessors are the most fascinating documentaries released cinematically, not because of their breathtaking cinematography, whiz-bang special effects or even revelation of secret or unknown information. What it does offer is a look straight into the personal lives of a group of people with nothing much in common except this series of extraordinary films which every 7 years throw their experiences open to the world. For the most part they are ordinary lives but they are engrossing as only reality can be. There is no gloss applied, no smoothing over of rough edges. Apted has become a friend to many of his 'subjects' and the warmth of their relationship with him comes into the film. In this program, even the effect of the film series on the people in it is examined, so in some ways it is a film about itself. Like a classic serial cliffhanger, at the end one is impatient to see the next instalment, but it will be seven years in production...