This article is part of a three-part series breaking down the technical and thematic aspects of the Netflix series ‘Adolescence”. Read Debanjan Dhar’s “The Nightmare That is School” and Tatsam Mukherjee’s “Parenting as a Horror Story”
“I should’ve killed her, but I didn’t,” a flustered Jamie tells Briony Ariston, the clinical psychologist. Briony has just asked him if he ever called his classmate, Katie Leonard, out for calling him an “incel” on social media. “She’s a bitch, even you can see that,” he says, frustrated with attempts to make Briony believe his words.
He begins to say, “All I did … all I did was…” and suddenly, his expression switches. From a shot of the two, the camera slowly zooms in on Jamie. His unnerved face breaks into a sneer. “Look at you. All hopeful like I’m going to say something important,” he says with an impish grin. He tells her about Katie rejecting his proposal for a date and asks, “You think she was a bitch, right? Doing all that?”
The camera slowly begins to move towards Briony. While Jamie goes on to recount what he did on the fateful night that Katie was murdered, the camera stays fixed on her face. Briony is pale and aghast, listening to this 13-year-old describe his intentions towards a fellow female classmate. “I could have touched any part of her body. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Most boys would’ve touched her. So that makes me better. Don’t you think?” he asks her. As Briony tries to appear composed again, Jamie turns away and bites into a sandwich.
Directed by Philip Barantini, Adolescence is a tale that explores the dilemmas of what lies within our control and without. In every issue it addresses—children’s exposure to misogyny, incel culture, parenting, schooling—the motif of control remains a constant.
The psychological confrontation between Briony Ariston and Jamie Miller and the way their conversation unfolds is also dominated by this motif. At every juncture that Jamie feels threatened and vulnerable with Briony’s questions, he covers his emotions up with bouts of violent rage, mocking and attempting to physically intimidate her.
Briony, on the other hand, has to deal with the formidable challenge of remaining calm and dispassionate in her approach; even with the awareness that her being a woman is encouraging Jamie’s misogynistic jeering. However, what unnerves Briony even more than Jamie’s deep-seated disdain for her gender, is his vulnerability and desperation for validation as a boy struggling to become a man. When she suddenly declares that this session is her final one, Jamie’s startled anguish breaks her heart. As objective as she tries to remain throughout the session, she finally gives in to her emotions when he asks her, “Do you like me?”
This question of control becomes the premise of the aesthetic form of this limited series as well, complementing the conceptual thematic of its content. It is evident right from the first episode that is designed as a procedural. The entire sequence—where Jamie is arrested from his home by DI Bascombe, taken to the police station, told his rights, given a lawyer, medically checked and then taken into interrogation—is shot with clinical precision. There is no scope for mistakes. The fact that each episode is filmed in a single take adds to the camera’s surgical accuracy. It follows every individual who is involved in the process, articulating their role alongside their emotions as it rolls.
And yet, a dent appears in this perfection. An overspill materialises from the calculated turn of events, as nothing prepares either party—be it the police officers or Jamie and his family, particularly his father, Eddie—for what transpires in the interrogation room. Jamie begins to respond to the questions as he has been trained by his lawyer—“no comment” is what he is instructed to say, when asked a question about the night of the murder.
However, as evidence unfolds and the conversation goes forward, Jamie’s naive attempts to outsmart the police officer crumble like a house of cards. The confidence that Eddie displays about his son’s innocence, right up to the point that the CCTV footage of the murder is shown, comes crashing down the moment the footage is played. But the other side doesn’t remain untouched by the chain of events either; a close-up reveals the genuine perplexity and pity in DI Bascombe’s face, as he transforms his previous, icy tone of questioning to gentle imploring, asking Jamie to explain his actions. No matter how much he has prepared to deal with the situation, his shock and horror at an adolescent’s actions are betrayed when the murder is actually seen. No adult in the room emerges unscathed from the trauma of the visuals, or the interrogation.
This constant back and forth with the element of control over the series underlines the question of accountability in Adolescence. Undoing the idea of isolating an individual for their criminal tendencies, it throws a spotlight on the role of various oppressive social structures that shape an individual’s action, especially when they’re at a tender age. Who presides over these structures, how young minds interpret them and where to begin dismantling their control, then become the haunting, real-life questions that the viewer takes away from this unsettling piece of fiction.
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Apeksha Priyadarshini is Senior Copy Editor, Outlook. She writes on cinema, art, politics, gender & social justice.
This article is part of Outlook’s April 21, 2025 issue ‘Adolescence’ which looks at the forces shaping teenage boys today—online misogyny, incel forums, bullying, and the chaos of the manosphere. It appeared in print as ‘In One Shot.’
