Netflix has done it again. A 4-episode British miniseries, Adolescence, has shocked a lot of people, in the style of Baby Reindeer last year. No one doubts the power of Netflix to create content and offer the audience something different and unique and this series is it.
The main protagonists are a 13-year-old boy, Jamie Miller, and his family who are faced with an event that causes a before and after in their lives. The series premiered on March 13 through the Netflix platform. The story is set in a fictional city and revolves around the discovery of a girl, Katie, who has been murdered in a parking lot.
Technique as a way of telling a story
One of the most remarkable details when you start watching the series is that it is shot in a single sequence shot, that is, they show you real life live, without cuts, using a single camera that moves between the actors, obstacles, floors, buildings, etc. You may think that it is edited and that there are parts that may be suspicious of having a post-shooting work, however, Netflix itself has said that it was shot in that natural way.
The sequence shot is a film resource that borders on the most extreme choreography. Everything has to go well when you shoot the scene because any mistake ruins everything shot before. The camera movement has to be fluid and agile, and the viewer must not realize that the camera is there. Deep down, it is us, the spectators, who want to see what is happening through a peephole.
Perhaps one of the best known sequence shots and one of the first was the one created by Alfred Hitchcock for his film “The Rope“. Due to limitations of the time, when recorded in Technicolor and with filming tapes, in sequence shot there were certain cuts in which the camera focused, for example, on the back of an actor and it was at that moment when one reel was changed for another. The scenes, therefore, lasted the duration of the reel, which at that time was approximately 10 minutes.
How Adolescence was filmed
The Adolescence miniseries is made up of 4 chapters, each of which has integrity of its own. Episode one focuses on the moment of the child’s detection and takes place in the police station. Episode two takes place in the high school where the child suspect and his murdered classmate study. Episode three is a session of a psychologist with the child protagonist Jamie, filmed in a single room. And finally, in episode four we see the life of the boy’s family a year after the events and we finish understanding the story a little more.
To carry out this portent of production, each episode of the series was developed in weeks. A week of reading the script, another week of technical planning and another week where the filming of the episode itself took place. The same episode was shot twice a day over the course of a week and in the end the best sequence of that week was chosen.
Nowadays cinema is no longer seen on the big screen. With the emergence of streaming and platforms to watch movies and series such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO Show Time, etc., content is now created to be watched for hours. Movies continue to have their role, and they continue to be seen in theaters and on online platforms, however, the most important thing for these companies is to have subscribers and that those subscribers spend hours and hours watching content. And even more so now that most of these companies show ads in the middle of the series or movie.
1️⃣ A child is arrested
In episode one, the detection of the child suspect is shown, how they are taken to the police station and the process that is carried out, the paperwork, when a person is arrested. From the first moment the viewer is introduced to the story and has the idea that it is not possible for a child, with an angelic face, to be capable of being a murderer.
At no time in that episode does the viewer think that the child is a murderer, however, in the final sequence, the viewing of a security camera, which has been a direct witness to what happened, it is clearly seen that the child, using a knife, has carried out the crime of his companion.
After this shock, which no one expects, the viewer’s mind now reflects on knowing why this has happened. How is it possible that a 13-year-old boy would have been able to do something like that.
2️⃣ A series that reflects an era
Episode two of the series is filmed in a high school where both the alleged murderer and the murdered woman are studying. In an era like the present in which young people have an absence of objectives because the world is already functioning and assembled, the image of how life in a British high school is shown in all its harshness is terrifying. Teachers are no longer moral references and people who teach how to become jailers.
The role of social networks plays a key role in this chapter. Not only is there bullying in the school itself, but this bullying is also transferred to the internet. Students communicate on platforms such as Instagram through cryptic messages that adults do not understand.
It is heartbreaking how children who are beginning to know the world feel ignored at school and are treated as losers. Adolescence is a stage of your life that marks you because you begin to understand the world and interpret it. You need the puzzle of pieces in your head to fit together piece by piece. The image of you, and above all, the image that others have of you, is of utmost importance when you are a teenager.
The episode talks about the 80/20 theory, which says that 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men. Therefore, 80% of men (boys) become mere spectators and NPCs (no player character). I understand that it is a rule that sounds good, you may even think that it is true, however, objectively it is not so. This theory does not have a clear way of being measured, therefore, it is a rule to explain an anomalous situation, but it is not a rule in itself.
This chapter concludes with a scene that breaks the boundaries of reality. The camera rises as if it were a volatile entity several meters above the ground and ends up focusing on the parking lot where the murder occurred and Jamie’s father carrying a bouquet of flowers to the place where Katie was found.
3️⃣ Therapy
The cinema of the last decades has been based on saturating the scene with thousands of events that occur at the same time and that your brain is unable to distinguish them all. In Marvel movies, for example, a lot of things happen on screen at once and your brain can barely notice one or two details. Each scene is like a painting full of subtleties.
However, the essence of cinema is not to oversaturate the viewer, but to tell a story that entertains. Episode 3 is a wonderful example of this essence of cinema. It is a single sequence shot of a therapy session that lasts 50 minutes, without cuts, in a room, with two protagonists talking non-stop, Jamie and the psychologist who treats him, Brione.
4️⃣ One year later
The last chapter, 13 months after the murder, focuses on the family. Jamie’s father, mother and sister spend the father’s birthday going to a shopping mall and we understand a little more about the personality of the father, an extremely violent and irascible person.
Many people, in the last episode, wonder if it is true that the father is a pedophile. That doesn’t really matter at all. I understand that what the creators want to convey is that when someone is marked everyone judges them and they invent things to do harm. It’s not that you have to suffer for what happened, but also that other people hate you and show it to you by inventing any stupid thing.
Why it is not necessary to show trail
From the first episode the viewer knows that the child is the culprit, at least, he murdered his high school classmate in a premeditated way. Even knowing this after watching the 4 chapters, you can think that there was a motive, although a motive can never lead to killing another person.
Who is to blame? The parents? The kids at school who bullied Jamie? Social networks? Adolescence? Katie? There is really no one 100% to blame for what happened, but the act carried out by Jamie will make him spend years in a reform school, away from his family, because in life acts have consequences and violence towards another person is never justifiable.
Memorable performances
Rarely in recent years have performances like those in this series been seen on screen, big or small. The performance of the father, played by Stephen Graham, who is also the creator and screenwriter of the series, and the son, played by Owen Cooper, is noteworthy.
I would highlight the way the father expresses himself without speaking and how he communicates with his gaze. And how the son is able to behave like a good child and suddenly become a bad child, of whom you even have half because his reactions are totally erratic, bordering on physical violence.
| Created | Jack Thorne – Stephen Graham | |
|---|---|---|
| Script | Jack Thorne Stephen Graham | |
| Directed by | Philip Barantini | |
| Protagonists | Stephen Graham Ashley Walters Erin Doherty Owen Cooper Faye Marsay Christine Tremarco Mark Stanley Jo Hartley Amélie Pease | |
** This article is a personal review and was created without the help of artificial intelligence.
