42 up

Director Michael Apted first visited them when they were seven years old: fourteen English schoolchildren from different social strata. Thirty-five years later, their lives are thoroughly documented in the UP documentary series, in which they are filmed and interviewed once every seven years to find out what has become of their individual dreams. They wee 42 years old in 1998; the seven-year-old urchin was driving a taxi and doing a mathematics course, the eccentric wanderer was a politician for the Liberal Democrats, and the former student of an elite private school was teaching immigrants living in London. 42 UP raises the question of whether England is still a class society. Is our fate already fixed at birth? To what extent are life’s limitations caused by social circumstances? But above all, 42 UP reveals how dreams can be shattered and replaced by others.