The British miniseries Adolescence has become Netflix’s breakout hit of the season, and for good reason. Co-creator and writer Jack Thorne’s third riveting social drama to hit stateside streaming services in two months, after Acorn premiered Best Interests and Toxic Town arrived on Netflix in February, this saga of a 13-year-old boy charged with killing a female classmate speaks profoundly to the impact of social media and that oxymoron “incel culture” on sensitive young minds. The cast—led by co-creator and writer Stephen Graham (Peaky Blinders) and featuring remarkable performances from Top Boy’s Ashley Walters, Graham’s A Thousand Blows co-star Erin Doherty (The Crown, Chloe), procedural stalwart Christine Tremarco, and newcomer Owen Cooper as the diminutive defendant—is a hall of fame of undersung UK television talent. The show is also a technical achievement, with director Philip Barantini’s camera following the characters through each real-time episode in a single dynamic shot.
Spread out over more than a year, the story progresses in snapshots. The first captures the early-morning arrest of Cooper’s Jamie Miller and his father Eddie’s (Graham) awful realization, after viewing video evidence, that his boy is guilty. In the second, Walters’ DI Luke Bascombe and his partner, DS Misha Frank (Faye Marsay), take their investigation to Jamie’s school, an already hostile environment plunged into full-on chaos by the murder. The breathtaking third episode takes place almost entirely among two actors in a single room, where Doherty’s psychologist is tasked with evaluating Jamie. And the last looks in on the Millers more than a year after Jamie’s arrest, as they try to forget about their ordeal and subsequent pariah status for long enough to celebrate Eddie’s 50th birthday. A necessarily tense show, Adolescence offers few scenes of happiness or humor. But there’s one light moment in the finale that I just can’t get out of my…
