Kids Grow Up, The

In 51 Birch Street (2005), director Doug Block discovered that he hardly knew his parents at all: three months after the death of his mother, his father remarried his former secretary and suddenly became a totally different (i.e. happy) person. The Kids Grow Up revisits this story, but this time Block is in the role of the father. There was always a distance between the filmmaker and his father, while with his own daughter, Lucy, he is mainly a good friend -- as we see from the masses of home movies he has made of her. Now that she is almost ready to go away to college, Block faces the daunting prospect of not having her around anymore. He films her last year at home, at the same time discovering what being a parent means in the modern age. Block is extremely open, as is the rest of his family. Even when his wife succumbs to serious depression, or when his daughter, furious and in tears, says that she has had enough of the film, they keep talking to him -- and the camera. Block also dares to show his own weaknesses, such as admitting his unease concerning Lucy's boyfriend (whom she is sleeping with), and he does not censor his wife's often telling and loving yet completely ruthless analyses of his behavior. An exceptional, intimate study of the wonderful relationship between parent and child. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)