49 Up · The Up Series
2005-09-15 · Michael Apted · 134 min
Tony Walker
At 49 Tony looked like the working-class success story of the series — two homes, a Spanish dream, grandchildren. Apted framed him as the man who had 'made it' on his own terms.
Neil Hughes
Rural Cumbria suited him better than London. Neil had a degree, a council seat, a church role and a parliamentary candidacy — a full public life built on very little private stability.
Bruce Balden
Fatherhood arrived in his forties and suited him. Bruce at 49 was settled in Hertfordshire — a long way from Whitechapel and Sylhet, but happier than at any earlier point.
Suzy Lusk (Suzanne Dewey)
With the children grown, Suzy's centre shifted to her counselling. She began saying goodbye to the series — a goodbye it would take her fourteen years to complete.
Nick Hitchon
The painful end of his first marriage — which he said felt 'like a death' — and a second marriage to a fellow academic. A department chairmanship marked his standing at Wisconsin.
Andrew Brackfield
Steady and unruffled: a successful lawyer whose life had delivered what was forecast, and who seemed largely unconcerned with status.
John Brisby
A silk and part-time judge at the top of the commercial Bar, with a family life and a cause — Bulgaria — that gave the interviews their focus.
Jackie Bassett
Poor, in pain and on benefits in Scotland, Jackie nonetheless owns 49 Up: she turns the interview on the interviewer, naming the gender and class bias of 28 years of questions. It is the series' sharpest fourth-wall moment.
Lynn Johnson
For the first time Lynn's stability is threatened from outside — not by illness but by public-service cuts to the library work that has defined her. Her marriage remains the fixed point.
Sue Davis (later Sue Sullivan; Sue Fitzgerald from 2020)
The working-class girl who was expected to be a housewife now runs the administration of a university law school. 49 Up frames her as the trio's success story — steady job, steady partner, grown children.
Paul Kligerman
At 49 Paul was employed by a sign-making firm and had been married to Susan for more than a quarter of a century. The film's set piece for him was the trip Granada paid for back to England to see Symon, the friend from the dormitory, now a foster father. Two men from the same children's home compared lives across the world.
Symon Basterfield
At 49 Symon was a foster father and airport freight worker, calmer and more reflective than before. He had reconnected with three of his five estranged children and was open about how the children's home had left him without confidence or ambition, which was exactly why he fostered. Paul's visit from Australia gave the film its warmest scene.