7 Plus Seven Now that we have a baseline of interviews to compare the documentary series can start contrasting answers then with now. Of course there's the expected amount of regret over things said at the age of 7. Sometimes it's just a slip of the tongue, like misnaming the school one kid hoped to get into. Sometimes they're asked to answer for their callous and hurtful declarations. What's interesting is that the kids, now 14, don't take their answers completely back with great apologies but modify their remarks. The underlying differences remain. In one detestable case the jerky kid is growing into a vile human being.
Beyond that, I'm not as interested in these kids as Roger Ebert was. I'd be so much happier if we only followed 5 or 6 of them, spending more time with them and ditching the rest. There still isn't enough differences between all the kids. I wish we followed them around a little more, observing their daily activities instead of cutting from one talking head to the next. Not only does this approach lack excitement, the responses get to be filtered, slightly thought-out. Actions speak louder than words, and this film forgets that.
Then came the comments. A series of quotes right in the middle of the film that summarized my problem with the movie completely. Spoken by a half-dozen of the kids. For clarity I'll print them as one long quote.
"I think it's just ridiculous and I don't see any point in doing it. What's the point of people sort of going into people's lives and saying 'why'd you do this and why not...'. I don't see any point in it. What's the point of the program? It's to reach a comparison I don't think it is. Cause we're not necessary typical examples. And I think that's what people seeing the program might think. Falsely. To typecast us. So everything we say, they'll think 'that's a typical result of the public school system.'"