Written by: Haroon Shuaib
Posted on: June 11, 2025 | 
| 中文
13-year-old Owen Cooper has delivered a fabulous performance as Jamie Miller.
It's not often a series grips OTT audiences with the profound impact of Adolescence, the four-part British psychological crime drama that premiered in March 2025. Masterfully created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, and directed by Philip Barantini, the show introduces a true prodigy in 13-year-old Owen Cooper. His portrayal of Jamie Miller is an absolute tour-de-force. The series grips the viewers from the word go as the teen-ager is arrested in the first couple of minutes for the murder of a girl in his school, leaving his family devastated. What follows on from there as the plot unravels leaves the viewers a lot to think about. The series became the most watched streaming television show in the United Kingdom in a single week, beating all previous records. By end of March, it recorded 30.4 million views and ranked in the top 10 most-watched lists across all 93 countries tracked by Netflix's top 10 metrics, placing Adolescence ninth on Netflix's all-time viewership list.
Created by Jack Thorne (pictured) and Stephen Graham, Adolescence ranks ninth on Netflix’s all-time viewership list.
The story unfolds in an English town where armed police led by Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe raid at the home of the Miller family. The father Eddie, mother Manda and the daughter Lisa are left devastated as the 13-year-old son Jamie is taken to the nearby police station on suspicion of murder. During Jamie's formal interview, the police officers reveal that Jamie has made several sexually explicit comments about female models on Instagram. He is questioned about his classmate Katie Leonard, whose murdered body was found in a car park the night before. Jamie denies any involvement till Bascombe plays CCTV footage of the murder site where Jamie can be clearly seen stabbing Katie multiple times. As the episodes proceed, investigations at Jamie's school and interviews by a forensic psychologist uncover Jamie's views towards women associated with the manosphere and bullying he has received on social media. At home, Jamie's family deals with the community's backlash against them as they work together to cope with Jamie's arrest and subsequent detention. Before anyone cries spoilers, the real strength of the series is not in any suspense (the fact that Jamie has murdered Katie is revealed in the first 20 minutes). The real draw of the story is understanding the motives that can lead a 13-year-old to commit such a heinous crime and how toxic cyber culture is taking such a serious toll on the psychology of today’s teen-agers, defined as Generation-Alpha, born between 2010 and 2024.
Christine Tremarco and Stephen Graham star as the parents of the lead character.
According to the maker Stephen Graham, Adolescence was originally conceived by him in response to the growing cases of knife crime by teenagers in the United Kingdom. He decided to create a drama exploring the motivation of extreme acts of violence by young boys. His collaboration with screenwriter Jack Thorne materialized into a script based on no specific incidence but as honest and chilling as a true story. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's programme Front Row, Thorne stated that the makers wanted to "look in the eye of modern male rage" and examine the impact of sexist, misogynistic and boorish behaviors displayed online by the so-called callous influencers and opinion-makers to the impressionable teen-agers.
Stephen Graham and Owen Copper star as father and son.
As if the plot did not have enough emotions to grip the viewers, the makers add a few other equally fascinating hooks. Every episode, each more than one hour long involving multiple actors, situations and even locations, was shot in one continuous take. Shooting was planned through multiple rehearsals building up to full technical run-throughs, during which the director of photography would plan camera movements. Each one-hour episode was shot around 10 times, with two takes per day. All of this happens as the camera follows its characters through windows, up stairwells and into speeding vans. Various crew members had to hand the camera off to each other throughout filming, without stopping. At one point the camera even gets mounted on a drone from the ground level to take an aerial shot and then brought back to the ground level without any break. Final takes were chosen with no cuts or blending of shots together with CGI. Graham said that each episode took three weeks in total. Netflix provides lots of material about the series and reveals that the second run-through of episode one is the one used. For episode two, it is the 13th take, for episode three which was the first to be filmed it is the 11th take that was finalized, while the final episode was the 16th take. It is not surprising that Adolescence has received unprecedented critical acclaim for its directing, writing and cinematography, with special attention paid to its atmosphere and performances.
The realism of Adolescence is compounded by the superlative performances of every actor, playing a central or side charter with equal ease. 13-year-old Owen Cooper cast in the role of the teenage murder suspect, Jamie Miller, had no previous professional acting experience. Casting director Shaheen Baig considered 500 boys for the part, but Cooper attracted her attention with his demo tape. Stephen Graham, the man behind the series, also gives a heart-wrenching performance as Eddie Miller, Jamie’s father. Another spectacular performance is by Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston, the clinical psychologist assigned to Jamie’s case who appears for just one episode. As her character unravels the inner demons of Jamie, just a 13-year-old bloke dealing with a lot of unaddressed psychological gravities for far too long, her portrayal of disgust and guilt as an adult is simply brilliant.
Owen Copper as Jamie Miller and Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston, the clinical psychologist.
Writing in The Guardian, Lucy Mangan stated that Adolescence was "the closest thing to TV perfection in decades". The series has a rating of 8.2/10 on IMDB, 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and has four out of five stars on Common Sense. Anneliese Midgley, a Member of UK’s Parliament, called for the series to be screened to Parliament and in schools, claiming it could help counter misogyny and violence against women and girls. UK’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed the call, writing on Twitter, "As a father, watching Adolescence with my teenage son and daughter hit home hard." After his backing, Downing Street staged a meeting to discuss the influence of online toxic material and decided to make the show free for viewing in secondary schools. The programme has sparked a conversation about the impact of social media and "manosphere" influencers at the global level and many social scientists are calling for smartphone bans in schools and a "digital age of consent", similar to Australia, which has passed a law banning children under 16 from using social media.
Stephen Graham and Owen Copper
Adolescence increasingly reveals a widening cultural divide between teenagers and adults in contemporary society. The prevalent, often unsupervised, use of social media by today's youth presents a significant cultural challenge that governments, parents and societies must address comprehensively. While freedom of expression, the right to privacy and free will are crucial, they are double-edged swords. These rights cannot be considered in isolation from the responsibility and profound understanding of the potential for anti-social behaviors that can arise from their misuse. There are no easy answers to the questions that Adolescence leaves behind. The makers are already considering a second season of Adolescence after the series’ success.
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