And here’s a few reasons why.
Great projects can be called from afar, without ever having viewed a single minute. It’s usually a combination of awesome creatives coming together with visionary filmmakers and a cast of actors willing to forget themselves to honor their characters.
The new Netflix series Adolescence, which just dropped on the streamer this past week, is a combination of all the above but also offers the kind of after-viewing thinking-and-talking-about-it combo that makes it simply outstanding.
Each of the four episodes during which the story unfolds is a single shot sequence of more or less an hour, which follows the story of a family falling apart, after their 13-year old son is arrested for murder. Yes, murder. This is edge of your seat drama, in the sense that while watching the first episode during a special London preview with the cast and crew, courtesy of Netflix, I held my breath more than once. And only started breathing again when my body reminded me of the importance of oxygen.
The series reunites Stephen Graham with Philip Barantini who worked together on another one-shot wonder, the 2021 film Boiling Point. The film then became a TV series, which was released in 2023 and can now be viewed on BBC iPlayer. Incidentally, for those who have followed my love of Arab cinema, Lebanese filmmaker Mounia Akl (Costa Brava, Lebanon) co-directed the series, alongside Barantini. The world always turns out to be smaller than you think!
Joining this group, on Adolescence, is British playwright and television writer Jack Thorne, as well as a cast of veterans that includes Graham, Ashley Walters, Erin Doherty, Christine Tremarco and newcomer Owen Cooper in his first acting role. Cooper will next be seen in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, alongside Margo Robbie and Jacob Elordi, which is slated for an early 2026 release.
So I hinted at the reason why the series is so damn important to watch and that can be explained in one sentence: Our current culture of misogyny and those who fuel it. As the Netlix press notes point out “There is no easy way to be an adolescent in our complex modern world and no easy way to be a parent either. These are just two of the universal truths at the heart of Adolescence.”
“We could have made a drama about gangs and knife crime, or about a kid whose mother is an
alcoholic, or whose father is a violent abuser. Instead, we wanted you to look at this family and think,
‘My God. This could be happening to us!’ And what’s happening here is an ordinary family’s worst
nightmare...”
At the London screening, Graham said “it takes a village to raise a child” and that Adolescence doesn’t want to lay the blame anywhere — at the feet of the parents, the school, the child’s peers and society at large. Thorne later added that it also “takes a village to destroy a child,” and among the negative influences touching today’s teens, and pre-teens, is of course their extensive use of the internet. To someone who grew up with a B&W television set in the 1970’s, it is hard to comprehend the power of this outside force that has replaced our social life, our romantic interactions and any semblance of a unified society. But today’s teens, and even those much younger, use it for entertainment and it’s an entity completely uncontrollable by their parents.
Graham also pointed out, “when I was that age, I would be in my room playing on my Casio keyboard.” I remember playing records — yes vinyl, on a record player, in my room at that age myself. “Now they have the internet in their room,” the actor and producer of Adolescence continued. A rabbit hole of incomprehensible stimuli for those two young to know the difference between good and evil and the nuanced shades of grey those often come in.
Among those voices easily accessible to a young, impressionable and perhaps overly vulnerable child, is the toxic chorus of the Tate brothers. With their multi-millions of fans, they speak to the “incel” community — the involuntarily celibate community of young males who think Andrew and Tristan have their backs. When instead, the duo are building an empire of lies, crime and deceit all thanks to their gullible spirits.
The “Manosphere” was a term used by Thorne during the London preview. He admitted his algorithm “got really dark,” from his research online to write the series. But, as most intelligent, analytical persons would, Thorne also admitted understanding “the logic of it all.” As a woman, I often watch in disbelief on TV, as I hear other females talk about being raped or worse at the hands of the Tates. I mean, their ego and aggressive nature can be seen from a mile away. I would be afraid to stand next to them on public transport, let alone be in a room with one of them. But that goes too deep into the issue of responsibility, and Adolescence has its brilliance there too, in the way it steers clear of judgement. Did Jaimie do it, didn’t he, if so why or why not? Those are all questions that you’ll have to answer for yourselves.
The one-take single shot format proved magical, though very challenging. Turns out the episode we watched at the preview was take 2, according to Barantini, but the school episode, the second one in the series, in the version we watch is actually the 14th take! Now that’s dedication. Imagine shooting 15-17 takes each of all four episodes. I felt tired just hearing that.
Famous last words I’ll leave to Ashley Walters who plays Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe on the show, as he told the press during an online moderated meetup, courtesy of Netflix.
“I always wanted to work with Phil [Barantini] in that kind of way. And then I got there, and I realized how tough it is. It's quite challenging, you know what I mean, and quite daunting at times. I spent many, many evenings kind of burying my head in the script, sometimes a few tears in my eyes just thinking, am I going to be able to achieve this?” He confessed, continuing. “But actually, it was when I let go… that's when I started to understand what the process was about. There is an ensemble cast, everyone picks up the ball no matter how quickly they pass it over or how long they have it, it doesn't matter. We're all in it together. And when you drop it, someone else picks it up and gives it back to you. And that was the process. And the minute, I started to just respond to what was happening in front of me and believe in my mind that I knew the text, I knew what was going on, that's when it became free and amazing. And, you know, I just wish I could work like this like every day, you know, it's one of the best experiences in the world.”
This is one show you won’t want to miss.
Adolescence is now streaming on Netflix, worldwide.