ADOLESCENCE

In the British Netflix miniseries ADOLESCENCE, a 13-year-old boy is arrested for murder. In four separate but linked stories, we see how the arrest impacted everyone around him and piece together what happened and why. It is a brutal, arresting watch for pure human drama, and it blew me away.

The story begins with police bursting into a home to arrest Jamie Miller on suspicion of savagely murdering his classmate Katie Leonard. Thus begins ADOLESCENCE in a breathless first episode that will have your blood boiling and shatter your nerves if you’re a parent. It looks like Jamie did it, but did he?

In the next three episodes, we see the police investigation at Jamie’s school, a psychologist questioning the boy at a detention center, and see how his family is coping and struggling for hope, answers, and peace.

Each episode is a single take, normally a technically ambitious but in these episodes a tremendous feat as we travel through a large, perfectly conceived realistic setting. Stephen Graham, who co-wrote and starred as Jamie’s dad, is no stranger to this type of filmmaking after doing BOILING POINT. That was set in a restaurant, though, and in ADOLESCENCE we follow the characters through an entire police station, high school, and town. You really feel like you’re there, and stretches of little mundane things happening take on the gravity of a dramatic pause rather than produce boredom. From timing to everything happening in the background, it’s all meticulously planned, though it doesn’t look it but instead feels completely natural.

The actors are just incredible, every single one absolutely nails it, with the great Stephen Graham leading the pack. The actor who plays Jamie, in particular, was a real standout.

The themes are as grueling as the drama. The horrible role of social media in teen’s lives, the bullying, incel subculture, never-ending hierarchy of popularity haves and have-nots, and how you think you’re doing parenting right but you never know the one thing that might have a negative influence on how your child sees the world. At the heart of this is boys and girls, young boys thinking girls have all the power, lacking positive mentor role models, and thinking you have to be aggressive to stand up for yourself. Beautifully done, none of the themes are explicit, instead offering the entire story as food for thought and discussion.

Overall, ADOLESCENCE is a powerful, heart-shredding, thought-providing, and very human drama. Highly recommended.