A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.
Interestingly, the perspectives offered on humanity are overwhelmingly positive, indeed joyful; audiences will find themselves laughing often out of a sense of recognition and connection with these disparate lives.
Ignore the stats and surrender to the emotion in a movie where there’s always something cool just around the corner. Make the most of it, Mick’s Monster Burgers in Portsmouth!
It is humungous in scope, if not length (95 minutes), and it is almost unique.
Moving and insightful. Not a classic by any means, but a fascinating glimpse of the way we live today.
It’s remarkable how stimulating and fresh the result of Kevin Macdonald's project actually is, thanks mainly to regular jolts of human weirdness.
The best way, maybe, to experience this is to simply let it wash over you.
A bold project that has succeeded beyond the wildest expectations. User-generated cinema has arrived. What’s next?
It doesn’t linger, rarely returning to characters, but all life is here, ultimately showing both just how ordinary everyone is and just how amazing everyone is.
Life in a Day has its moments of brilliance – one segment is like a movie in itself – but like watching YouTube videos, a little goes a long way.
The patchwork meditation that emerges is jumpy, chaotic, banal, moving, wry, funny, frightening – the stuff of life itself.
Though this YouTube-funded global snapshot of 24 July, 2010, is rather loftily being touted as a record of the world as seen through the eyes of its inhabitants, all it really does is show how narcissistic we've become.
Works surprisingly well.
Warmhearted.
The result is entirely enjoyable, as upbeat and happy as a pop video.
Some sequences would stand up as mini-documentaries if you watched them on YouTube. Others are spoilt by the music's insistence on how cosmic it all is. But the pomposity is usually undercut by Macdonald's down-to-earth sense of humour.
Life in a Day: Around the world in 80,000 clips
A Day in the Life of Generation Youtube.
Kevin Macdonald on Humphrey Jennings
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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