‘The Oldest Person in the World’ Review: Sam Green Shares a Life-Changing Decade of Thinking About Mortality in Myriad Ways

Key Highlights

• The most wisdom?
• Some might argue that success comes in living the longest — in outliving all your peers, to put it in slightly more macabre terms — although Sam Green’s delightfully insightful “The Oldest Person in the World” suggests there’s an age at which the gift of life starts to feel … excessive.
• Related Stories 'Stranger Things' Surprise Final Episode Doesn't Exist: Here's Why Fans Thought 'Conformity Gate' Was Real 'Stranger Things' Star Jennifer Marshall Says She Was Surprised Not to Be Asked Back for Season 5, Notes It Came After Cancer Diagnosis With his sneakily profound and unexpectedly personal new nonfiction project, the filmmaker behind such outside-the-box docs as “32 Sounds” and “A Thousand Thoughts” takes a deep look at the subject of mortality.
• In the tradition of Agnès Varda (who makes an appearance), he’s determined to glean whatever advice he can collect from the last few people born way back in the 19th century, but also with his own uncertain future, as Green was diagnosed with multiple myeloma during the making of this film.
• Back in 2015, the New York-based director realized that the current record holder (Susannah Mushatt Jones, born in 1899) was turning 116 not far from where he lived, in Brooklyn, so he grabbed his camera and headed over to her birthday party.