100% 56 Up

All Critics (47) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (0)

We feel good, refreshed and depressed in watching these people get older, also embarrassed in moments and cautioned about the passage of time.

Apted, himself now in his early 70s, says he hopes to continue the series further. Long may it live.

Watching "56 Up" gives you the wonderful feeling of seeing a sociological experiment blossom into something novelistically rich and humane.

Time has been neither kind nor cruel to the 13 men and women profiled in "56 UP." It has just been time, which is what this groundbreaking series is about.

We are all older now, and this series proves it in a most deeply moving way.

Inevitably, one looks in the mirror afterward and thinks, What have I lost? What have I gained? And at what cost?

... feels like a retrospective and summation of the whole series, with ample quotation from the previous films, an approach that makes it interesting even for viewers who haven't seen the previous installments.

A completely unique and remarkable documentary project.

Apted skillfully weaves old footage with the new, and we become poignantly aware of another factor shaping their lives (and our own): biology, as the we watch the once-cute kids grow gray and heavy.

Perhaps the boldest and probably longest running sociological experiment on film.

I think the best thing about this movie (and the entire series) is that it forces the viewer to think about their own lives. It's kind of an awakening experience.

Once again, Apted assembles a captivating documentary that's profoundly educational, essential viewing to aid the understanding of the human experience.

"56 Up" is well worth seeing.

56 Up is still moving and philosophic, though not as exciting as earlier episodes, which had more drama.

The running time is over two hours, but the lives here are richly revealed and vastly rewarding.

Apted possesses the unsettling ability to shape perceptions of their lives and personalities from inside an editing suite, a fact that the members of his flock begin to recognize at varying points throughout their adult years.

...can be seen and appreciated by both those who have followed series and those to whom it is all new.

It's like the startling time lapse photography of "Chasing Ice" had been applied to the human race.

See you again in 7 years, friends.

In the eighth installment of Michael Apted's epochal documentary series, his aging participants (one of cinema's greatest assemblage of living characters) provide not just a telescope into the past but also a kind of primer for how to live.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/56_up/

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