"40-Year-Old" is one of my favorite TV series ever. Even today I sometimes watch individual episodes to be transferred back to the 1970s and refresh my memories. But let's give a voice to the director, Jerzy Gruza: For me, the 40-year-old was the Woody Allen of Poland in the 70s. An idealist, lacking in cleverness, a bit of a dunce, an honest and naive dreamer. (...) The funny thing about the 40-year-old was that he took all the recommendations "from above", even the absurd and propaganda ones, seriously and tried to implement them. That is why he inevitably fell into the face of real life (...). We tried, together with Krzysztof Toeplitz, to saturate the script with a mass of characteristic episodes, specifics, and details taken from so-called life. On 300 pages of typescript, we created 145 characters. Where else can you find such a gallery of attitudes and types of behavior characteristic of our times? For me, the TV series was perfectly acted, painfully realistic, and sprinkled with intelligent, unique humor, not to mention the fact that the actors have created legendary and unforgettable characters in it. For example, Maliniak (Roman Klosowski). A short man with an unattractive appearance who lacks both brains and qualifications. And at the same time, he is very ambitious and always wants to be the center of attention. Even today, after almost 50 years, many Poles call Jaroslaw Kaczynski Maliniak. I think that many characters in "40-Year-Old" are timeless and unforgettable.
