Genre Crime drama
Created and written by Jack Thorne & Stephen Graham
Directed by Philip Barantini
Starring:
Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller
Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller
Ashley Walters as DI Luke Bascombe
Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston
Faye Marsay as DS Misha Frank
Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller
Mark Stanley as Paul Barlow
Kaine Davis as Ryan Kowalska
Jo Hartley as Mrs Fenumore
Amélie Pease as Lisa Miller
Austin Haynes as Fredo
Lil Charva as Moray
Elodie Grace Walker as Georgie
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language English
No. of episodes 4
Production
Executive producers Mark Herbert, Emily Feller, Stephen Graham, Hannah Walters, Jack Thorne, Philip Barantini, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Nina Wolarsky
Producer Jo Johnson
Running time 51– 65 minutes
Production companies Warp Films, It’s All Made Up Productions, Matriarch Productions, Plan B Entertainment. One Shoe Films
Original release Network Netflix Release 13 March 2025
NOTE: This review contains spoilers
Calling Adolescence a “crime drama” is a bit like calling the Godfather series “family movies”. It’s a description that manages to be technically correct while missing accuracy by a mile.
Adolescence is a four part series about a thirteen year old boy who is accused of knifing a female classmate, Katie Leonard, to death. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that he did commit the crime, as the viewer is presented with incontrovertible evidence late in the first episode.
Each episode is filmed in a single shot sequence, a remarkable accomplishment in itself. West Wing, famed for its single-shot sequences, never managed more than 17 minutes. By doing it this way, director Philip Barantini throws away most of the usual narrative and plot tropes seen in such shows and replaces it with something far more realistic and compelling.
Each episode is a unique story in and of itself, focusing on discrete elements of the greater tale.
The first, and longest episode starts with the forcible police entry into the Miller household, the arrest of Jamie (Owen Cooper) the subsequent trip to the station, the interview between the police officials and the boy, to the police deciding that charges are warranted. The police are unfailingly courteous and professional, Jamie’s family are confused but loving and supportive, and Jamie himself is convincing as a boy in a situation way over his head and frantically looking for a way out.
The second episode takes place three days later, as two detectives visit Jamie’s school and interview classmates and staff in an effort to find out what led up to the crime. The school is in turmoil, and passions, especially amongst the kids, are running high. The detectives learn about the prevalence of incel culture (toxic masculinity promoted by the likes of Andrew Tate) on the phones, and pressure felt by students of all genders as a result. They learn how Jamie acquired the murder weapon, and in a final, telling sequence, one of the detective’s sons explains how emoji use puts an otherwise innocent and pleasant message exchange on an entirely different level of meaning and intent.
The third episode is at the youth facility where Jamie is being held awaiting trial. A psychologist (Erin Doherty) is interviewing Jamie to determine his fitness for trial. He is defiant and adversarial, maintaining his innocence, but even as he rages and even threatens the counselor, you see him forming an involuntary bond of reluctant dependence with her. The acting in this episode by itself is absolutely extraordinary, and should bring Cooper and Doherty many dongs come awards season.
The final episode is 13 months after the murder. It’s Eddie’s (Stephen Graham) 50th birthday, and it begins pleasantly enough. But we quickly learn that the community hasn’t forgotten Jamie’s crime, and Eddie finds his work van tagged with the word “nonse” in big red letters. (Presumably it was a misspelling on “nonce” which is English slang for a sex offender.) Failing to scrub it off but still determined to make it a good family day with his wife and daughter, they go to the local hardware outlet to find out how to remove the paint, and plan a nice outing after, with a movie and Chinese supper. That falls apart when Eddie is recognized by the store clark, who is avidly curious, and then jeered at by some youths on bicycles who indicate they tagged his van. He captures one and gives him a shouting and shaking, not doing any actual damage but showing that he has temper control problems of his own. As the shaken family return home, they get a call from Jamie, who reveals he plans to change his plea to ‘guilty’ in the court trial the following day.
I don’t normally write out the whole plot of a series when I review it, but in this instance, the story is very much secondary to the way in which it is told and acted. Even having some idea of what’s coming next, you’ll be utterly mesmerised by the plotting, pacing, storytelling and above all the acting.
This is great television, and they’ll be talking about it and trying to duplicate it for years. It takes an utterly mundane story and makes it unforgettable, not least of which is in its utter disregard for the norms involved in a “police procedural” type of story. It avoids all the usual easy solutions: Jamie is troubled, but not psychotic. He is bullied, but not singled out in that regard. His family are stable and caring. Jamie’s family aren’t poor, don’t have problems with drugs, and while Liverpudlian, have no trouble in their adopted Yorkshire community. But uncomfortable truths are revealed.
Now on Netflix.