The “continuous tracking shot” isn’t a new concept in filmmaking. Although it was Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery thriller Rope that best utilized the technique, younger moviegoers might be more familiar with its usage in the Hollywood satire Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and the World War I epic 1917. While it has posed a greater challenge for television creators to pull off, given their comparative dearth of resources, standout episodes of Mr. Robot and The Bear also used it to spotlight particularly intense moments in their protagonists' respective character arcs.
It’s easy to roll one’s eyes at the notion of this as a “gimmick,” as it’s often felt like a desperate cry for attention when the material itself isn’t extraordinary. However, the Netflix miniseries Adolescence is the rare example of a show that needed to be presented without gaps in order to avoid narrative shortcuts. Adolescence is an examination of radicalization, masculinity, violence, and youthful bullying, but it has avoided feeling like a lecture because it’s isolated to just a few key moments. Whether Adolescence is based on a true story isn’t relevant, as the fact that the question could be raised has proven that the show did something right.
Set in modern-day England, Adolescence is centered around the murder of the teenage girl Katie, who was stabbed to death. This information is only slowly given to the viewer in the pilot, in which armed police guards break through the doors of a suburban home and arrest Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old played by breakout star Owen Cooper. In the role of Jamie’s father, Eddie, is series co-creator Stephen Graham, a character actor best known for his scene-stealing roles in Peaky Blinders and Boardwalk Empire. While the prospect of Graham in the role of a seemingly ordinary family man is surprising, it’s not shocking when compared to the critical revelation made at the end of the first episode that Jamie’s guilty.
Adolescence isn’t on Jamie’s side, but the extent to which it detailed the transformation of his reality over the course of one hour is illuminating. It’s made immediately clear that Jamie isn’t afforded any special attention because of his age, as he’s dragged, handcuffed, and questioned; the only moments in which he’s shown the minimum of patience are so that there can be no legal loopholes for his defense to take advantage of. Even then, Jamie’s defendant doesn’t feign any interest in whether he’ innocent; his only ally is his father, who’s left to question what responsibility he had in the birth of a monster.
Adolescence has a clear goal in mind, as the show has pointed to the radicalization of young men by online influencers as the primary reason behind violent crimes. Although the showrunners have floated many prospective legal amendments and preventative techniques amidst the show’s production, Adolescence is smart to be cagey about specific references; the name “Andrew Tate” and phrase “incel culture” are only used as examples within the identification of a larger issue. Jamie’s culpability can’t be blamed on one thing, because it was a culture that deprived him of basic empathy. One of the most chilling revelations of the series is that despite his capacity for violence, Jamie’s understanding of death is itself undeveloped.
Adolescence’s smartest choice is to closely examine a series of reactions made by different investigators. The show’s second installment is centered on the stone-faced police officer Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters), whose belligerent treatment of Jamie within the pilot suggested a deeper source of frustration. While it’s shown that Bascombe has a son that he doesn’t understand, the more critical admission is that this ignorance extends to all of the children affected by the case. Bascombe’s discovery is that Katie’s murder is a byproduct of an online war waged against anyone accused of vulnerability. The antiquated belief that children could be protected in their homes has fallen apart, as the internet has unlimited potential to entrap impressionable minds with insidious ideas about consent and identity.
If the second episode spoke to larger truths through an examination of a border content, the third installment’s the standout because of its singular focus on Jamie. Over the course of a tense interview with the young psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty), Jamie’s faced with questions about his feelings towards women, his relationship with his father, and his usage of social media. Although Ariston has an ability to get under her subject’s skin, she’s also hopelessly naive to Jamie’s interiority. A few obtuse comments from Ariston’s male co-workers suggest a gender divide that’s resulted in stagnation, but the greater gap is a generational one.
It wasn’t possible to blame Jamie’s actions on an abusive household or a neglectful father because he had none; the reality that a bright young man was swayed to commit homicide towards a girl who refused his advances is evidence of the fragility of an entire generation. Jamie’s instincts were inherent to the adolescent culture he was raised in, and not the result of adaptations made after a traumatic incident. As the final episode confirmed, his family will bear the consequences for his actions for the rest of their lives, even if the mistakes that they made weren’t unique.
That Adolescence was created to push an agenda doesn’t diminish its artistic success; even if Jamie’s intended to be a stand-in for today’s youth, there’s enough specificity in Cooper’s performance for the character to feel unique. Nearly every character is humanized, with Graham’s final breakdown in the show’s final episode the emotional highlight. Adolescence is intended to start a dialogue, and it’s inspiring that a streamer was willing to take a chance on a project so artistically ambitious.