Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Produced by Liza Marshall
Released by YouTube/Ridley Scott & Tony Scott/National Geographic Entertainment
USA. 90 min. Rated PG-13

Life in a Day is the anecdote to every reality show you’ve ever seen.

A year ago, producer Ridley Scott asked YouTube users to film themselves for a single day, July 24th, and to upload the results to the website. Then the most “compelling and distinctive” footage was culled from the 800,000 international submissions into a full-length documentary. In lieu of a traditional narrative, which would have been impossible given the parameters of this experiment, director Kevin Macdonald fashioned the material into a kaleidoscope of sound and vision, a sweeping panorama of the human experience.

The film occasionally meanders and feels overlong, but countless individual scenes shine: an Australian hospital patient is moved to tears by the kindness of his caretakers, a Japanese boy lights a candle for his departed mother, a New Yorker calls his grandmother and confesses that he’s gay. In a true testament to the subjectivity of experience, the plight of a third-world slum dweller carries the same emotional resonance as that of an American who gets turned down by a girl.

But Life is more than just the sum of is parts. Harry Gregson-Williams and Matthew Herbert’s pervasive musical score gives the film a cohesive feel and cinematic scope. Macdonald and editor Joe Walker imbue the proceedings with numerous picturesque transitions. Constellations move across the night sky, and slow-motion soap bubbles graze the surface of water with a surprisingly tactile quality. The many montages elevate the minutia of daily life—sleeping, waking, brushing, and even peeing—into high art.

The movie ends with a single confessional. “I spent the day hoping for something amazing to happen,” says a young woman sitting in her car as midnight nears and a thunderstorm rages outside. “But all day long, nothing really happened.” In light of the preceding 90 minutes, the admission is sweetly ironic. As the rest of Life in a Day shows, it’s the smallest moments that often carry the most weight.