Adolescence—A raw, unflinching dive into parenthood’s darkest hour from Netflix. Stephen Graham presents a dynamite show with a terrific performance.
Adolescence is a prime example of the theory that if a movie or TV show is of high quality, with themes about an authentic human experience, it will find an audience. A British show with a relatively unknown group of actors and a slightly familiar one, Adolescence reached no. 1 on Netflix’s most-watched list in 93 countries.
Starting with the police invading the home of a middle-class family to arrest Jamie Miller (the aforementioned 13-year-old), the camera tracks through the arrest, the family’s shock, the collection of evidence and interrogation, in a single shot.
The single-shot format continues in the following 3 episodes, too. This style of filmmaking, by now, has been mastered by Phillip Barantini since 2021’s Boiling Point. The camera movements give the entire series an urgency and unpredictability, gripping us to our seats. With this structure, the show achieves the intimacy of a theatre production, where the actors seem to have come out of the television and share your living room.
When the police enter looking for his son, Eddie (Stephen Graham) thinks they’ve made a mistake. Obviously, his kid hasn’t done anything wrong, he thinks. His kafkaesque experience worsens when he is told the charge against Jamie is murder. DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and DS Frank (Faye Marsay, performing palpably her character’s anger and discomfort) are being objective, but the death of a teenager is weighing on their shoulders.
The show answers all the questions but doesn’t allow us to come to terms with the tragedy. We oversee a session between Jamie (Owen Cooper, the star of the show) and a psychologist Brioni Ariston (a remarkable Erin Doherty) in an eye-opening sequence that breaks your heart by showing how a promising child can easily turn bad. Hats off to both actors for delivering this unbroken, turbulent scene.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. A village full of responsible and vigilant members. Despite having cameras everywhere, the school faculty don’t know about a lot that’s going on on their premises. An episode that explores the rampant bullying that takes place in schools and the teachers’ inability to deal with the weight of the job acts as a wiper on our mind’s windscreen that clarifies the stakes of parenthood.
In the last episode months after Jamie is detained, we see his family on the morning of his father’s birthday. Christine Tremarco as the mother and Emilie Pease as the sister are simply marvellous. The family has a tough road ahead of them and the pain of the life-altering event is etched on each of their faces. In the scene where Jamie calls to share his final decision on his plea, the honesty on display is devastating.
Graham, namely, as Jamie requests Eddie to be his ‘appropriate adult’ (someone who represents a minor during the investigation process) struggles to understand his role in the event. We know there isn’t a blueprint for what a parent should do when their child is arrested for murder but we also know that some perfectly sane individuals have to face these exact circumstances.
There is a deftness to Graham’s performance as Eddie. He is an average, uncomplicated man. The circumstances, however, bring out the compassion in Graham and his presentation of this character, aches. Someone put this guy in a movie that shows us the full range of his abilities!
As a co-writer too, Graham along with his writing partner Jack Thorne, has told the story in a way that separates the show from all past crime thrillers/dramas. In four scenes, they have given us an enormous landscape telling the narrative from previously unexamined angles. Despite the extreme event where the story begins, the story is about ordinary people. And that’s what makes it scary enough that we can’t look away.
There isn’t a calming resolution to be had here. It takes a helluva lot more than 4 hours to overcome a tragedy. With no clear antagonists, Adolescence compels us to look at each character empathetically and in the process identify flaws in the roles we ourselves execute in raising the children in our lives.
Whereas in Birdman the continuous shot seems like an experiment, here, it serves the purpose of giving us a peek behind the curtain to the mysteries of the human mind and the many triggers that govern it to action. What is on display, is a result of meticulous calculation and incredible skill. Adolescence is a show that demands to be seen. And for good reason.
Eddie Miller – ‘You okay?’
Jamie Miller – ‘Yeah.’
Eddie Miller – ‘Look at me. Look at me. I’m gonna ask you once. Okay? And no matter what’s happened, no matter what you have or haven’t done, I want you to tell me the truth. (Pauses) Did you do it?’
Jamie Miller – ‘No.’
Eddie Miller – ‘Promise?’
Jamie Miller – ‘I promise.’
Eddie Miller – ‘Good. Okay.’