What would you do if your own child was accused of murdering someone? The upcoming Netflix crime drama Adolescence tackles that thorny topic, treading into the kind of dark psychological waters addressed in projects like We Need to Talk About Kevin and the Apple TV+ series Defending Jacob.
Thirteen-year-old Jamie is arrested and becomes the prime suspect in an investigation into the murder of one his female classmates, leaving his father, Eddie (Stephen Graham), reeling. Apart from its subject matter, what makes this particular drama of interest is the way it was filmed. A four-part limited series, Adolescence was shot in one continuous take broken up into four parts.
Director Philip Barantini previously collaborated with Stephen Graham on the BAFTA and BIFA nominated one-take film Boiling Point and its television continuation, so the duo are well-equipped to handle this kind of immediate, real-time storytelling.
Erin Doherty, Ashley Waters, and newcomer Owen Cooper round out the cast. The series marks Cooper's first major television role. Doherty plays Jaime's assigned clinical psychologist and Walters is Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe, whose own son appears to be around Jaime's age.
Jaime's crime doesn't just cause problems for his family and his alleged victim. The trailer teases that there will be tremendous cultural fallout as this show aims to dig deeper into toxic masculinity and extremism.
There's one pointed clip shown in the trailer where Luke's son tells him about a call to action shared by the "manosphere," a term coined to address the increasingly rampant amounts of online misogyny and its influence on our youth.
He tells his detective dad that he has no idea what it's like these days, when "80% of women are attracted to 20% of men," meaning the boys are encouraged "to trick them, because [they'll] never get them in a normal way." It's a chilling indictment of our current society, which is only continuing to regress into increasingly dangerous and archaic ways of thinking.
Given its extremely timely subject matter, Adolescence is going to attract a lot of attention. It's exciting to see talented filmmakers like Baranti and actors like Graham at work. Graham also served as a co-writer, working on the script alongside Jack Thorne (Enola Holmes). This Netflix Original could be an important and eye-opening viewing experience for many if it's executed well.
All four episodes of Adolescence begin streaming exclusively on Netflix on March 13. Set a reminder on your Netflix account here.