Harry Bailey (Elliot Gould), protagonist of Getting Straight, is thirty. He’s old enough to be an elder statesman to anyone younger than him and a rebellious youth to anyone older. He’s old enough to have a history that defines him – and he’s largely defined by failure. The film uses the then-contemporary Vietnam War as a backdrop to Harry’s indecision over whether to abandon his leftist ideals to chase the material success that comes with being a teacher, or to double down on them at tremendous personal risk to himself; to either buy into the system and try to change it from the inside or attempt to destroy it. He talks about the world like it was supposed to make some kind of sense by now – that he should have had a bigger effect on the world and gained more power, and he flails around with what little power he possesses indiscriminately and sometimes cruelly. Another way of putting it is that he has lived long enough to see the consequences of his youthful ideals and how they play out, and he doesn’t entirely like that. This is one way of being thirty.

What are your favourite works about being thirty?