The five subjects -- chosen from a questionaire sent to all grads of their class -- are in some respects a cross-section of American life, but they were wisely chosen more as individuals than as types.

The result, paradoxically, approaches a comprehensive criticism of the unsatisfactory values inculcated by Yale and other American insitutions in that period, yet the film avoids mounting the soapbox or over-generalizing.

Perhaps the most socially aware of the five is, ironically, the most reticent, Nebraska banker Bob Knight, who is reminiscent of James Stewart's George Baily in "It's a Wonderful Life" in his profound estrangement from his small-town existence and his desire to escape from the burden of running the family business.

There's a stunning scene of Knight sitting dejectedly at the dining room table as his wife and mother argue whether his life has any value to his community. "The area is dying," he argues back to his traditionalist mother. "Who's going to be the last one to turn out the lights? Should it be the banker after everyone else has deserted?"

The glitzy lifestyle of Hollywood producer and novelist Steve Sohmer seems equally empty, although Sohmer attempts no direct critique of Hollywood beyond recalling "the silliness of the aspiration" he felt in wanting to run a film studio. "My God, it's the worst job in the world," observes the former president of Columbia Pictures.

The most resolved men on the program are gay psychotherapist Richard Snodgrass, who speaks of the "exhilarating" result of abandoning his false married existence, and Geoffrey Noyes, the scion of a prominent upstate N.Y. family who chucked it all to play jazz piano.

These men may not have any larger social prescriptions to offer others to ease them through the male midlife crisis, but they share a sense of personal fulfillment brought about through the rejection of traditions they found to be sterile.