"It's crazy -- what your brain tells you to do when you're a kid."
That line from "Adolescence," the now-streaming, addictive, adrenaline-fueled Netflix series, sets the tone for an emotional powerhouse that sneaks up and floors you. The young TV season has gotten off to a dynamite start with a series that is sure to rank with the year's very best.
The first thing to say about this brilliant British crime drama is that it refuses to adhere to the cliché playbook. "Adolescence" thrusts us so relentlessly and mercilessly into the action that you feel the same confusion and panic being experienced by the Miller family as the police stage a noisy pre-dawn raid on their suburban home and arrest their 13-year-old son.
Review: 'Mickey 17' flies high on Bong Joon-ho's no-limits imaginationA word here about the setup: Each of the four one-hour episodes, masterfully directed by Philip Barantini, is unleashed in a single unbroken shot, called a "oner." It sounds like a gimmick and sometimes falls into a gimmick's traps. But the impact of each episode will pin you to your seat, fusing suspense and character to create a series that literally vibrates with energy.
The actors could not be better or more electrifying. Chief among them is Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, the boy's father. You probably know Graham best from his tough-guy roles such as Al Capone in "Boardwalk Empire." Graham, who wrote the script with Jack Thorne, is giving his most humane and heartfelt performance, though Eddie has a short fuse that's ready to blow.
Also stupendous is young Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, the boy who looks shell-shocked when he is dragged to the station to be interrogated by cops Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and Misha Frank (Faye Marsay). We are looking at the face of a child, which makes the accusations against him seem even more horrific.
Jamie chooses his father as the one adult allowed to accompany him. "Why did he pick you?" asks his hurt mother Manda (a touching Christine Tremarco). The reason will become clear as the story unfolds. Jamie protests his innocence, though Eddie's face collapses when the police show him a video that implicates Jamie in the brutal stabbing death of a female classmate.
In episode two, the police dig into Jamie's behavior at school and reveal a side his parents never see, a bullied boy rejected as an "incel," who reacts with fury when he can't attract girls sexually.
Cooper, soon to costar with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as the young Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell's erotic new version of "Wuthering Heights," is a true acting discovery. He finds the pain festering inside Jamie, notably in episode three when a therapist, superbly played by Erin Doherty ("The Crown"), brings out the monster lurking just behind the face of presumed innocence.
Everything culminates in episode four, taking place months after the crime, when the Miller family, including Jamie's sister Lisa (Amélie Pease), try to celebrate Eddie's birthday in a town that's turned against them. It's here that a bonfire of issues, including parental irresponsibility, school neglect, toxic masculinity and cyberbullying, all culminate to address the fact that in this modern world, adolescence is often a skipped step on the road to an elusive maturity.
Review: Don't expect a peaceful sleep after seeing 'The Rule of Jenny Pen'These are problems that we all see and most of us choose to ignore. And yet, "Adolescence" observes with skin-crawling dread and piercing clarity the bruises that come with being young and the societal forces that inflict them.
You may wince when cinematographer Matthew Lewis' probing camera pushes in, catching the beauty of one young face and the desolation of another. But hold on. This isn't a series about what turns a kid into a killer. It's a series that gets at the small things that can drain a heart of feeling. That applies to all ages. And that's why the unforgettable "Adolescence" so passionately matters.
