Adolescence (2025) - A Guest Review by Adrian Brain

My word! This is the best drama you will see this year. It is one of those programmes that should hopefully affect change in how we raise our kids, even though it studiously avoids trying to provide solutions to the many questions it raises. This Netflix Mini-Series is drama at its very best.

Jamie is a 13-year old kid, whose family home is raided one morning by the police. He is dragged off to the police station, where we find he is accused of the brutal murder of a fellow schoolgirl. By the end of the first episode, we know all of the shocking events that happened, but the remaining 3 episodes investigate why.

Each episode is shot in a single-take, leading to an urgency and immediacy in the acting. Stephen Graham plays the father of Jamie brilliantly and relatably. Jamie is played by newcomer Owen Cooper - and in such a disturbing, complex role, holds the drama together. Erin Doherty, as the child psychologist in episode 3, also deserves a special shout-out, even though the acting is exemplary across the board.

Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne are the writers, the dialog is naturalistic and avoids moralising or trite solutions admirably. They will be surely scooping up the gongs when awards season comes around. It’s good to see Graham getting 'big gun' support too - Brad Pitt is credited as executive producer, for example - though the drama is about as un-Hollywood as you could get.

It’s not quite flawless. For example, in the second episode, set in the kids’ school, the one-shot technique works against the narrative. We discover the chasm between the kids and the teachers, parents and police of what is actually happening on their social media feeds, but the message is disrupted by the constant flow of characters through the school - and an alarm bell of convenience. This is a small gripe however, on what is surely the 'must see' TV of the year.