Review of Roger Ebert's Review of The Up Documentaries

Roger Ebert was a movie critic born in Urbana, Illinois. His reviews were widely recognizable, one reason being his use of metaphors. In his review of The Up Documentaries, he shows how the lives of these kids tell us about who we are and who we are becoming. The Up Documentaries is a series created by Michael Apted in 1977. The series followed the lives of British kids from different classes from 7 to 56 years old. Ebert in his analysis of Neil, character in the series, says Neil's story is the most encouraging of all the episodes in "42 Up." When you follow the lives of these kids you either find a drastic change in their personalities as in the case of Susan. Ebert quotes Wordsworth's metaphor, "The child is father of the man," to explain how you can predict who these individuals will become by looking at their younger personality. In most cases that not, this claim was true, but the series did have a few surprising characters. 

Since the documentary was looking at the lives of kids from different classes, Ebert concludes an obvious truth, "

class counts for more in Britain than in America." Ebert concludes his review by saying that as a kid he wanted to be a newspaperman and he did become one. His review causes one to want to watch the series just to self examine themselves - find out where they are and where they are going. The questions, "why am I me and why not you? Why am I here and why not there?," is one that tells our story. The answer is found only in our roots, our culture, our family, our likes and dislikes as children and our perception growing up.