To what extent can we know what goes on in the mind of an adolescent today? The situation presented by Adolescence, the new Netflix miniseries, is almost surreal. A thirteen-year-old boy, apparently ‘normal’, has stabbed a classmate to death. But what drove him to do it, and is it just an isolated case? The series, created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and directed by Philip Barantini, invites us to try to understand the conflictive reality of this new generation of young people, the first to grow up with social media and the internet, but without the ability to discern between what is appropriate and what is terribly harmful.
Adolescence is a relatively short series, with only four episodes, but each one is of impressive quality. In fact, they are all shot with masterful sequence shots in which it is impossible to perceive the cuts, making you feel that something is always happening. Each episode works with a certain independence, but they all follow the same story at different points in the case of Jamie, the boy who commits the murder, in order to understand what drives him to do it.
The first chapter plunges us right into Jamie’s arrest. It all feels almost unreal, and it is hard to imagine how a terrified and confused thirteen-year-old could be accused of murder. A doubt that remains, at least, until the final scene. Moreover, the magnificent sequence shot gives the episode a sense of vertigo that keeps you glued to the screen.
The following two chapters serve to understand how this was possible. First, a couple of days after the murder, two inspectors from outside the educational world enter Jamie’s school. There, they find aggression between classmates, disrespect towards the teachers, constant harassment, but above all, the omnipresence of the mobile phone, which all give a crude picture of the reality of these teenagers. However, the third chapter is possibly the harshest of all, as it focuses on a psychological evaluation of Jamie, his insecurities, and the damaging influence of the misogynistic philosophy of the manosphere.
In the end, the series’ closure seeks to lower the intensity and focus on Jamie’s family, trying to bring this drama closer to home and giving it a more emotional rather than purely dramatic tone. This is helped by the show's superb casting, especially Owen Cooper in the lead role and Stephen Graham, who has been giving excellent performances in his recent projects. Between the acting and the superb direction, the series becomes an uncomfortably raw, but all too real, portrait of this new generation to whom we give adult tools, only for them to be hurt as if they were adults.