Adolescence: The Haunting Connection Between Modern Masculinity And Violence

You might not need an introduction to ‘Adolescence’ if you follow Netflix trends religiously, the British limited series explores the difficult topic of how our society has conditioned young men and boys to view the women in their lives as inferior, as it depicts a 13-year-old boy being arrested for the death of a female classmate.

So far, Netflix is soaring high through its gloomy realism and the fact that each episode is a continuous scene, which heightens the sensation of urgency and terror, are its defining characteristics. The police break into the Miller family's house at the start of the programme to take custody of their little kid Jamie (Owen Cooper), while his parents (Stephen Graham, Christine Tremarco), sister, and (Amelie Pease) weep and beg as they watch in fear and perplexity. The confusion doesn't stop. Although it is only March, Adolescence, the compelling dissection of city disconnection and manhood that it offers, is already a forerunner for victories in many award shows.

Plot of Netflix's Adolescence

Jamie Miller, 13, is arrested for murdering a classmate, Katie. Although the evidence against him is overwhelming, his family members—his sister Lisa, mother Manda, and father Eddie—don't believe the charges. Jamie is dragged out of his home, thrown into a waiting police van, and arrested in the first scene. All in one continuous take. The entire episode and the following three were shot in what the industry likes to term "oners". Since they unfold in real-time, Jamie's arrest and his subsequent imprisonment occur over an hour. 

Although the "oner" is used to amazing advantage in each of its four episodes—the story is intense, absorbing, and almost unbearably tense—their tones are distinct from one another. Jamie's arrest and the chaos it causes for his family are discussed in the first episode.

Around 30 minutes in, a public defender shows up. He advises Jamie and his family on what to say and what not to say when he has his first interview. Armed with the evidence they have obtained, DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and DS Frank (Faye Marsay) corner him confidently to start questioning. Jamie is said to have taken Katie into a nearby park hours ago, when he stabbed her seven times, according to his father, who trusts him when he insists he didn't do it.

Adolescence through the lens of increasing normalisation of cultural misogyny

While men who commit violence against women can be dismissed as evil, Adolescence illustrates just how simple it is for children such as Jamie, the thirteen-year-old show's lead (played by Owen Cooper), to get dangerous and even deadly. It propagates an important lesson regarding their roles in society by establishing a link between the worldwide control of social media and the increasing normalisation of cultural misogyny.

Although the tale of Adolescence wasn't actually taken straight from the news, Graham and co-creator Jack Thorne were clearly inspired by the current trend of gender violence in the UK and beyond. Graham recently discussed with Tudum a report of a story in which a boy, said to be underage, stabbed a girl and explained, "It shocked me."

Adolescence introduces the viewer of mystery fiction to begin making assumptions about the true perpetrator. The camera chokes you into submission instead of cutting you off. Adolescence seems to be telling the characters that they can't deceive their dystopian society, and they shouldn't. Mass explored themes of guilt, bullying, and teenage estrangement. Adolescence's last instalment, detailing the entire tale of that awful night that Jamie trailed Katie into the park, does likewise. It culminates with a scene that likely will be counted as one of the most remembered in the history of television today.

The detectives are at Jamie's school in the second, and the third is a two-hander between Jamie and a child psychologist (Erin Doherty) that could even be a play in its own right. With the family once more, the fourth is the most emotional.

Each episode is one take that continues the story a bit further along. None of this ever deals with what I call "direct arrow psychology". Eddie is not a bad father. I didn't mention that Christine Tremarco is also great as the mother, not a vile booze-dosed addict or anything of that sort. It's not quite that straightforward. It allows the participation of many factors, including social media and the "manosphere". " Although Andrew Tate is mentioned, it is not emphasised, which needs to be in light of the rising misogyny on social media that corrupts impressionable young minds.

Rawness and authenticity in the implications of teen violence and mental illness 

Parenthood, teenage fury, emotional isolation, genetic trauma, ingrate influences, and mental illness are all necessarily hauntingly explored during adolescence. The third episode, a two-hander seven months after the arrest, is the show's strongest hour and one of the most compelling hours of television I've seen in years. Erin Doherty, a psychologist, is doing an independent evaluation for Jamie, who resides in a juvenile detention facility, to present to the judge during his trial.

This session can go either way, as I have witnessed on many occasions. To one way of thinking, she plays him like a piano, creating a series of emotions. She sees his tempestuousness but does not create it; by another, she is a ship on his ocean. Jamie's heavy breathing is the beat of this episode, and the overturned foosball table in the back corner represents how Jamie's life is turned around.

The doctor prods Jamie gently into showing more of himself, and he does so—unconsciously and quite frighteningly so—while the camera moves around them as they struggle and fight against one another. For the record, the acting in this episode is phenomenal, as is that in the other three. The highlight of this year's discovery is Owen Cooper, the teenage actor who was cast as Jamie. Within seconds, he can flip from disrespect to innocence. "Adolescence" elicits in the viewer the emotions of its characters, for better or worse: bewilderment, stimulation, and a growing impulse to get everybody to sit down and shut up for five damn seconds. It adds to this grieving, disbelief, world-shattering, and a resigned and never being able to comprehend what is happening kind of feeling throughout.

It is difficult to watch the show. Not because of the content, rather due to the one-take idea. There's varsity-level crying and an actual feeling of heaviness in these phenomenal performances. It uses its shock and sadness as a starting point for question-raising and social critique. A lot of adults will learn a lot of things from it. While it is a teen novel, the subject matter is adult. It's awful, and the psychological trip that this family takes is no less horrible. I have never seen anything of this size before, but the payoff is so good that it's worth seeing for any crime drama fan—or, really, anyone who likes films. Everyone involved deserves credit.