By filming the vertigo of adolescence in sequence shots, Netflix's new series brings out a raw, disturbing truth. Carried by Owen Cooper, deeply moving in his very first role, Adolescence leaves us with no bearings, at child's level, at the heart of the unspeakable.
It all begins in a modest house on the edge of silence.
Adolescence, the British mini-series directed by Philip Barantini, doesn't just tell a story: it imposes it on us, in a single, continuous movement. Each episode is shot entirely in sequence, without a single visible cut. A rare, almost violent feat for the viewer, who is called upon to follow the irregular beats of the drama without ever looking away. It's as if growing up today is less about learning than it is about an inner turmoil.
The plot can be summed up in a few brutal words: thirteen-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for the murder of a classmate. In this social and family fracas, the series takes us not into the hushed corridors of police stations or cold courtrooms, but into the glances, silences and gestures prevented. Adolescence is less an investigation than an x-ray of the collapse.
Owen Cooper, a stunning revelation, embodies this tragic thrill.
Still unknown a few months ago, the young actor delivers a performance of rare accuracy, without ever yielding to demonstration or forced affect. His Jamie is not a symbol, still less a monster: he's a lost child, vibrating with contrary emotions, suspended between innocence and guilt. In this demanding first role, Cooper impresses with his ability to inhabit silence, to bring out the muted panic, incomprehension and distress on his face - so many nuances that the camera, complicit and cruel, captures as closely as possible.
A radical device was needed to capture such a truth.
The choice of the sequence shot, far from being an aesthetic device, becomes an organic necessity. Each camera movement follows the characters' short breaths, embracing their fear, amazement and anger. We're reminded of Sam Mendes' 1917 or Barantini's previous film, Boiling Point, but here the stakes are even more visceral: it's about sticking to the inner chaos of a child confronted with the irreparable.
The Miller family, pulverized by the prosecution, is filmed with the same brutal tenderness.
The mother (played with overwhelming modesty by Erin Doherty) vacillates between blind protection and heartrending doubt. The father, silent, flees in clumsy gestures. The camera doesn't explain, it exposes. Every averted glance, every slamming door, every trembling hand becomes a silent chapter in this ordinary tragedy. Through them, a whole world - that of precarious homes, of young people left to their own devices, of toxic friendships forged online - takes shape before our very eyes.
But Adolescence is more than just a news story.
The series questions without asserting. It shows how ultra-violence, far from appearing out of nowhere, is often the result of a chain of tiny abandonments, misunderstandings and isolation. Without ever imposing it, she sketches a painful reflection on the invisible fractures of our connected society: the deleterious influence of social networks, the trivialization of violence, the absence of reference points, the increased solitude of a youth bombarded by images and injunctions.
Adolescence isn't about blame.
Neither apologetic nor indicting, the viewpoint is relentlessly sober. Violence emerges as a consequence, not an aberration. In this delicate balance between empathy and lucidity, the series avoids all the pitfalls of pathos or sensationalism. It simply looks - and forces us to look too.
As we close Adolescence, something hangs in the air.
Un goût de métal dans la bouche, une tension sous la peau. L’impression d’avoir traversé, sans filet, l’instant précis où tout bascule. Et la certitude troublante que cet “instant” n’appartient pas qu’à la fiction.
Available now on Netflix, Adolescence unfolds in four episodes of rare intensity.
