The challenges faced in the lives of five 20-somethings are documented in My Millennial Life. Millennials are considered to be one of the most educated generations. However, at the same time these individuals face great difficulty finding full-time employment and a quality of life on the same level of their parents. Hope, Tim, Emily, James, and Meron are five 20-somethings, who are trying to eke out an existence in the modern world.
According to the Wikipedia definition, the Millennial Generation (or Generation Y) typically consists of people born between 1980 and 1995. By this definition, 34 year old me can be considered one of the earliest Millennials. However, My Millennial Life decides to focus on the latter Millennials, with the ages of the subjects ranging between 20 and 25.
The documentary My Millennial Life is part of a full multimedia project, which also includes an interactive web documentary. Three of the subjects, Hope, Tim, and Emily, are featured in both the film and interactive documentary, while James and Meron are exclusively featured in the film.
These five Millennials face many challenges in their lives, however the biggest one is finding sustainable employment. Of the five subjects, the one who seems to be having the most difficult time is Emily, who is frequently shown recording video diaries of her life. There is one point where Emily gets a dream, yet unpaid, internship at Universal Music, only to find that it was not at all what she was expecting. She would later go back to collage and end up being taken aback by a professor, who essentially expects the students to teach themselves.
As a Millennial myself, albeit one a decade older than the majority of the subjects, I related greatly to the challenges faced by these individuals. I am a person who pretty much spent his entire twenties in post-secondary education, yet still hasn’t secured full-time employment. The term Millennial has become a dirty word for some people, with this being one of the first generations to be somewhat looked down upon by the older generations. In fact, there is one scene within My Millennial Life, which shows Hope having a heated argument with her parents, after she tells them she is planning to move away with her boyfriend. While the parents are obviously concerned about Hope’s well-being, the tone of the argument makes it sound like they are treating her like a child, instead of an adult free to make her own decisions.
The life of a Millennial can be a frustrating and depressing one. Even though these individuals have grown up in a very tech-savvy age, they end up being held back by a world that has not fully progressed. My Millennial Life is a film that is filled with much hopelessness, however there is also a glimmer of hope, as these 20-somethings struggle to carve out their place in the world.
LIKED IT My Millennial Life will have its World Broadcast Premiere Saturday, May 28, 2016 at 9:00 PM on TVO