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Adolescence (2025) - Dark Side of The Internet - REVIEW

Review by @skiptvads · 387d · of Adolescence

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I saw this series came out some time and people were making a big deal out of it and recently with all this second season failures and cancellations I was looking for something else, it was right there on Netflix, its just that Netflix is not a streaming service I consume much now this days and honestly I can see why everyone was losing their minds over it. Adolescence is one of those series that doesn't let up for a single second, it's the kind of show that makes you question everything you think you know about parenting, social media and what's happening to kids these days, if you got kinds you will probably get a bit paranoiac. The whole thing develops around this 13 year old kid named Jamie who gets arrested for murdering a classmate and right from the first episode you're thrown into this nightmare scenario where police are raiding a normal family's house and dragging away their son, it's brutal to watch because you can feel the parents confusion and terror at nearly 6:00 a.m in the morning, they have no idea what's happening. What makes this show absolutely insane is that each episode is filmed in one continuous shot, no cuts, no breaks, just pure raw emotion for an hour straight, there has to be some magic behind such way of filming that keeps the actors no full throttle, it actually makes you feel like you're trapped in this situation with the family, you can't look away or take a breather because the camera never stops rolling, its just how I imagine things from the crew perspective. The acting is very good if not great across the board, especially this kid Owen Cooper who I dont now much about, he plays the role of Jamie, apparently this was his first acting job ever and if Im wrong he still delivers a performance that would compare to more seasoned actors, Steven Graham who co created the show plays the father who get to watch his world go to hell, the entire show is a very powerful and disturbing one.

 

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Source From the start the big question is if Jamie did it or not, they show you pretty early on that he is guilty no questions ask, but that's not the point of the show, instead it goes into the why behind his actions and explores how social media and online culture can twist up a kids mind under certain conditions in terrifying ways. Episode three is probably the most intense intense from them all during the show, it's basically Jamie having a therapy session with a psychologist and watching this kid go from seeming normal to revealing these deeply disturbing thoughts about women and masculinity its all really mees up, the way he talks about the victim, how he justifies his actions and his complete lack of empathy shows how far down the rabbit hole he has fallen but rather been a trouble kid in the normal sense of someone been abused by his parents or at school he was living on a total opposite environment, he came form a loving home. The show does an incredible job of showing how these online communities prey on vulnerable young boys, filling their heads with toxic ideas about male supremacy basically and hatred against women, Jamie got sucked into this world of incels and red pill nonsense that convinced him he was owed something from girls and when reality didn't match these twisted expectations he turned to violence, its almost the direct comparison when a system locks up and you might expect anything but wrong out of it. On top or lets say behind all this trouble mind there is Jamie so chill and cool on the surface, he is not your classic obvious psychopath from a broken home, he is just a regular kid from a loving family who got poisoned by the wrong influences online and that makes it even more terrifying because it could happen to anyone's child, its just a matter of spending enough time with the wrong people spreading the worst ideas ever about how the world actually works. While watching the series and in between chapters I constantly kept asking myself what or how would I react under such situation with one of my kids, Jamie's parents had no clue what he was doing online or talking to and how it was changing him at his core and by the time they realize something was up with him it was just too late, not late for Jamie but for what he has done and changed.
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Each episode takes place at different points in time after the arrest and I have to say both the storytelling and the pace are great as it unfold the entire situation not just Jamie and his family but also the detectives working the case, the school community and even the victim's friends. As the police continues to investigate at Jamie's school it's eye opening to see how disconnected the adult investigators are from the reality of teenage life today, they don't understand the language kids use online, the social complexity or the kind of trouble and needs these young people face every day, there's this great moment where one detective's son tries to explain what was happening with Jamie but the dad just dismisses him and it felt like that kid could become another Jamie in the future just because his dad wouldn't listen to him, Im probably too paranoiac by now to be such a pessimist but its just that once a kid goes into such path its hard to turn around if they can turn around. The school scenes are particularly disturbing because they show how toxic the environment has become with kids sharing explicit content, the way they express about girls and normalizing behavior that would have been shocking just a generation ago, I saw this happening already during early 2000s and can only imagine how bad its now days, it's like technology intentionally make them go backwards but with smartphones and social media increasing every cruel though on their minds. The incel topic is something I dont want to go into too depth because its not something I dominate and also you go to take with pincers about every other rule or though process on their ideology about how women owe men attention and how men failure or lack of some feelings is women fault.

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Source The camera work does so good for the story perfectly making you feel claustrophobic and trapped just like the characters, you could feel the anxiety of the characters in a police station, a school hallway or a therapy room, you never get a break from the tension because the camera never stops moving and goes with the character as the story unfolds, to a certain point I would say its exhausting but in a good way. The sound also has to do a lot with it, from the sirens, slamming doors and uncomfortable silences that add to the overall sense of unease, I wish this was an actual movie because of all the technical element works together to create every immersive experience while the story goes down the rabbit hole of what the internet can do to a kids mind.

Some might criticize the show for pushing messages and social commentary but the reality is that this is not a video game, this is how things happen now days and its a great thing to expose the worst possible situations because as society keeps moving along side tech, things going to get worst. There is not backpedaling right now and I think the show does a great job at how it manage both the gripping crime drama and serious social commentary without feeling kinda preachy or too heavy handed in one side only, it let you know the facts and let you draw conclusions about what went wrong and how this kind of situations can be prevented but without pushing you into a specific thought.

At the end things extend to over a year after the tragedy, the last episode is a devastating one, watching the family trying to keep some balance and staying together in somewhat normalcy while having to deal with their son crime, with people bulling and the community turning against them trying to understand how they failed as parents. You can field the self blame and guild that makes me think if they ever felt shame for themself also trying to realize where and how they failed, I always try to put myself on the shoes of the characters when its such a traumatic and chaotic situation to understand how would I react. The phone call scene where Jamie tells his family he's decided to plead guilty is a powerful one and you can see how differently he treats the men and women in his life even after months of therapy, showing that his deep misogyny hasn't been cured or changed around, the show ends with the father breaking down in Jamie's bedroom, sobbing into his pillow and apologizing to a teddy bear as if it were his son, just to think about it breaks me from the inside. This isn't just entertainment, it's a mirror to our current society showing us the dark truth how we can be failing to our children without even realizing we loosing them, this show is a 8/10 for me in the low range.

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