Heart rendering documentary on two "middle class" families trying to survive the economy over 20 years.
In 1992 TV journalist Bill Moyer and his team chose two then-middle-class couples in Milwaukee - one white and the other black - and decided to follow their lives for ten years, much in the style of the British "UP" series (7UP, 14,UP, 21UP, etc.). Shortly after they began filming each of the couples lost their well-paying (well $15/hour, anyway) jobs and their families grew (children), just as the US economy started to sink. Moyers returned to film updates ever two to three years until 2000 and then returned in 2012 to complete the film.
Well-paced and edited (the 90 minutes for this film, shown on PBS' Frontline series this summer passes quickly), this film had me choking up in my throat a few times - especially when Jackie Stanley (the mother in the black family) tells of trying to stay afloat when their financial ship keeps taking on water. Her husband, Claude, was just as riveting to watch and hear, with a work ethic that very few have (one that he taught his...
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