His film 28-Up is the fourth installment of the series, and while it might seem an odd place to start, it actually provides an ideal overview of the preceding years. With footage of the subjects at ages 7, 14, 21, and now 28, you literally watch them grow up at fast forward, the basic phases of maturation all the more obvious because they are isolated. The individuals come from deliberately disparate backgrounds, from wealthy private schools to impoverished rural towns, but what is remarkable is the points where their attitudes and mannerisms coalesce. Take Nick and Suzy, for example. Nick is the son of a farmer, educated as a child in a one-room school, while Suzy was raised in an upper middle-class home and attended private school, yet both show the same shift from confident, outgoing 7-year old to self-conscious, almost visibly uncomfortable, 14 year-old. Another subject, Tony, is from a working class family and has a limited education, yet both he and Suzy are equally arrogant and defiant at age 21, only to achieve a similar level of contentment and stability when Apted catches up with them at 28.
On the other hand, Apted investigates the individual, the personality quirks that set each of them apart and the decisions that have shaped their lives. More importantly, he is looking for the how and the why behind it all. In searching for these answers, he juxtaposes the various interviews from each age, highlighting the unexpected developments that are bound to occur, as well as the persistent qualities that were there from day one. This raises that age-old question of nature versus nurture, ultimately leaving us with a little of both. At age 7, Bruce earnestly states that he would like to become a missionary in Africa, precociously eloquent in his stiff prep school uniform. But at age 28, Bruce is living and teaching public school in the working-class neighborhood of London's East End. He still hopes to bring enlightenment to people's lives, but he has distanced himself from both religious affiliations and his privileged, rigid upbringing.
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