Netflix original, Adolescence, follows the story of 13-year-old Jaime Miller who has since been accused of the murder of one of his schoolmates, Katie Leonard. Viewers are taken on the same painful journey that the rest of the cast are on as they deal with the aftermath of such a crime.
The series delves into the influence that social media has on young children – highlighting the toxic presences that it raises. The internet is a scary place because that’s what society has made it into. It has given people the ability to bully others in a way that’s quick and anonymous, which in turn, has led to the rise in dangerous online cultures. The show’s creator, Stephen Gram, saw the effects of this influx and found a way to adapt them into the hit crime drama.
Gram’s choice in filming style, while uncommon, does a lot more for the show than it’s given credit for. One shot filming is a technique where an entire scene is done in a single take and from only one camera. Each hour long episode was taken in a continuous shot from start to finish.
The show moved slower than most would think – almost painfully so. Given the technique they chose to use, it made it so that every little detail of a scene was included. This meant that viewers were subjected to watching fingerprint scans for all ten fingers and an entire car ride across town with what felt like no real purpose.
There was a noticeable silence that seemed to accompany these lengthier scenes as they played out. The series had a total of 16 songs on its soundtrack that they used sparingly. More often than not, the only things that could be heard between conversations were the sounds of breathing and the muffled bustle of the world outside.
It all served to give the viewers a real and raw experience. As the show was just about as real as it could have been, there’s a sort of intimacy to it all, it manages to invoke specific feelings onto the viewers in such a subtle yet effective way. There was a continuous feeling of unease throughout all of the episodes – mimicking the same painful suspense that the characters felt in the moment.
As the series specifically follows the aftermath of the crime, the viewers get to see the consequences that are faced, and ones from more than just Jaime’s perspective. While it’s his experience being under investigation that is focused on, the show in itself covers much more than just his single point of view.
His family, for one, is a perspective that we get to see most after Jaime’s own. The viewers get to see in real time how they grasp their newfound reality. His arrest leaves lasting impacts on his family members as they question how someone seemingly so innocent could commit such a horrible crime.
It’s his dad in particular that had the hardest time coming to terms with what his son had done. He struggles with this sense of guilt all throughout the series, doubting himself and wondering where he had gone wrong in raising the boy, unable to shake the feeling that he had failed his son.
We’re able to catch a glimpse of the other side of the story as well, specifically through the perspective of Katie’s friends who now had to mourn the loss of the girl who she held very dear to her. She was hurting and it resulted in her lashing out against those around her. Her friend had just been killed and the world kept spinning as hers felt as though it was slowing to a stop.
It’s the only real view that we get to see of someone mourning Katie. There are mentions of her family but we never see them in the following episodes. The show, of course, knew what it was doing in its fleeting mentions of the victim. It’s even indirectly acknowledged in episode two;
“You know what I don’t like about all this?” Frank says. “The perp always gets the front line: A man raped a woman. We’ve been following Jamie’s brain around this entire case. Katie isn’t important; Jamie is. Everyone will remember Jamie; no one will remember her. That’s what annoys me. That’s what gets to me.”
Katie wasn’t important to the story; Jaime was. It’s Jaime who was used in personifying the dangers of how influential the internet has become in raising boys with toxic masculinity. The series reveals. It’s so much more than just cyber-bullying and knife crimes.
Yet so many people are missing the whole point of the show. Jaime cornered Katie – a girl roughly his own age, pushed her to the ground, and repeatedly stabbed her to death. All because she had rejected him and called him out for the kind of person that he was. It’s hard to comprehend how people can take all of this in and still continue to believe he did nothing wrong.
People are waiting for that signature twist that has come to be common in true crime stories- to viewers who regularly watch this genre, it feels impossible that the most obvious suspect truly was the one who committed the offense.
Adolescence is not, and never was, a true crime series. It took inspiration from the real world in regards to toxic internet culture, but the actual story is completely made up – though definitely not unrealistic.
Many people have expressed a want for closure, for the questions that have arisen from the series to find answers, they’re awaiting a season two that I hope never comes. The drama was meticulous in its creation and has done a lot to make sure that their characters’ feelings are experienced by the audience to the same degree.
It’s left on a cliffhanger and I believe that it should be kept that way. End the story there and let people wonder what happened and come to their own conclusions. If the characters have to move on with this event forever in the back of their minds, then so do the viewers.
