Meaning at the Movies | Portraying Toxic ‘Adolescence’

If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I’m always an advocate for a miniseries. And yes, while miniseries aren’t technically movies, they can be logged on Letterboxd, which is basically my only criterion for choosing things that are eligible for me to write about. So here we are.

“Adolescence” is Netflix’s latest hit mini-series and follows a 13-year-old boy, Jamie, played by Owen Cooper, who is accused of the murder of his classmate Katie. The series, which initially had me a bit skeptical about all the hype it’s received, quickly captivated me. 

The show makes two interesting moves structurally — each episode is shot in a one-take style, and no character appears in all four episodes. A one-take essentially means that there are no cuts in the entire scene or episode. The camera is constantly moving and flowing, and the audience is with whatever character the camera is tracking. 

The viewer is fully immersed in the moment — you do not leave it even for a single second. Within “Adolescence,” each episode consists of a one-shot in different spaces or tracking different characters. The first episode follows the police as they take Jamie into custody, the second follows the police as they look for evidence at Jamie’s school, the third follows Jamie and the detention center’s psychologist and the fourth follows Jamie’s family. 

Because of how different each setting is, it does not logically make sense for every single character to be in every one of these places. And the fact that every character does not appear in every episode makes every moment they are onscreen all the more impactful. As the viewer, you are forced to sit with each of the main characters and experience every emotion they are experiencing in that moment in great depth. This is especially noticeable in the final two episodes, the second to last focusing almost solely on Jamie and a psychologist’s interactions, and the final episode centered entirely on Jamie’s family. He does not make an appearance in the last episode and is instead heard only briefly on the phone. 

This second-to-last episode espouses one of the core tenets of the show — the damage that social media can do to young children. And, in particular, how toxic masculinity is presented to young, impressionable boys. 

In the penultimate episode, a female psychologist is sent to assess Jamie’s mental aptitude and understanding of the crimes he’s accused of. She repeatedly asks him about his thoughts on women, a direction she pursues because of Jamie’s old social media posts and comments. Jamie’s responses, in turn, increasingly indicate negative views of women — and more specifically, beliefs of men’s superiority over women. He grows increasingly violent, yelling at the psychologist, even asserting that at one point he could have “touched any part of her — Katie’s — body that he wanted to.” He ends this conversation begging and pleading for the psychologist not to go “telling them what I did.” His guilt is never explicitly stated, but his reactions, the things he says about women and the hints he drops throughout the conversation point to his guilt. 

“Adolescence” is one of the first times I’ve seen the impact of toxic masculinity and social media explored. The extremes of what Jamie encounters online furthers misogynistic societal ideas into concrete actions and beliefs, including femicide.

This commentary becomes all the more jarring and alarming when it’s espoused through the lens and the body of a 13-year-old and further emphasizes the danger of these hierarchies and how they can quickly turn into extremist views. 

This is also mirrored in the final episode, which focuses entirely on Jamie’s parents and his sister. Towards the end of the episode, Jamie calls them, telling his father he’s going to change his plea and plead guilty. Jamie is only heard over the phone, not seen, and the entire following sequence is focused on his family’s fallout to this message. Jamie’s father, Eddie, played by Stephen Graham, is particularly captivating for the rest of the episode. He breaks down, saying that he should have done better, that he should have known. He and Jamie’s mother, Manda, played by Christine Tremarco, try to reason with everything that has transpired and their roles as parents.

They attempt to reckon with who their son has become and any role they may have played in that. They are ultimately comforted by the arrival of their daughter and her goodness, which proves that people within the same household can still be incredibly different. Both parents are wracked with guilt and the knowledge that their son doesn’t exist in a vacuum — as much as their inaction led to this moment, there were things they couldn’t have controlled even if they knew about them.

Ultimately, “Adolescence” is both an incredibly devastating drama and a sharp critique of patriarchal structures and toxic masculinity. Its unique sense of style and character placement only serves to enrich this and further drive home its troubling message on the state of society today.