Netflix should be flexing its UK arm more often. It seems to be doing all the heavy-lifting, especially when it comes to long-form programming. After last year’s One Day and The Gentlemen, Netflix UK has already delivered two stellar new shows this year; incidentally, the same writer is involved with both. Just a few weeks ago, the prolific Jack Thorne spearheaded Toxic Town, a crowd-pleasing drama about social injustice, told from the perspective of the women that were most affected by it. Thorne’s latest is the even better Adolescence, a psychological thriller that he co-created with actor Stephen Graham. It’s only March, but Adolescence, the fascinating examination of masculinity and urban alienation that it reveals itself to be, is already a contender for the best show of the year.

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Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, in Adolescence.It’s an incredibly ambitious trick to perform, but director Philip Barantini has experience in this department. He directed the electric feature film Boiling Point, which captured a chaotic evening at a newly opened fine dining restaurant from the perspective of a tortured chef, played by Graham. The fiery performer — Graham broke out with a memorable supporting turn in Shane Meadows’ This is England — reunites with Barantini as Jamie’s dad in Adolescence. Even though each of its four episodes utilise the ‘oner’ to incredible effect — the narrative is urgent, immersive, and almost unbearably tense — they stand apart from each other in tone. The first episode covers Jamie’s arrest and the devastation that it leaves his family in.

A public defender shows up at around the 30-minute mark. He explains to Jamie and his family what he should and should not say during his preliminary interrogation. The questioning is conducted by DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and DS Frank (Faye Marsay), who confidently corner him with the proof they’ve gathered. Mere hours ago, Jamie allegedly tailed Katie into a neighbourhood park, where he seemingly stabbed her seven times. He insists that he didn’t do it, and his dad believes him. Jamie’s guilt is played for ambiguity, and Adolescence invites viewers conditioned by mystery storytelling to begin theorising about the actual culprit. The camera doesn’t cut away; it chokes you into submission. The characters can’t escape their painful reality, and, Adolescence appears to be saying, and neither should you.

Episode two takes place at Jamie and Katie’s school, as the two detectives discover just how disorganised the public education system in the UK is. They go from classroom to classroom, desperate for any information that might shed light on Jamie’s motive. It’s an intricately directed episode, weaving in and out of various corners and corridors of the school; by the end of it, not only have the detectives accomplished their goal, but you’ve become intimately familiar with the geography. Episode two ends with a shot that defies explanation, as the characters race out of the school and into the streets. The camera leaves them behind and takes off, literally, floating over the small town and ‘landing’ in the parking lot where Katie died. It closes in on Eddie, staring at the crime scene with a steely expression on his face. In a matter of minutes, Barantini and his cinematographer, Matthew Lewis, go from a tense chase to a quiet character moment. It’s remarkable stuff.

But it’s the third episode, which takes place seven months later, that truly stands out as a landmark moment in modern television. Unfolding almost entirely inside one room at the juvenile detention centre that Jamie has been sent to, it might remind you of a similar episode in Netflix’s recent Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

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Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston, in Adolescence.A psychiatrist is assigned to evaluate Jamie’s state of mind. Played by Erin Doherty, she admits in the opening few minutes that she is taking longer than expected to come to a conclusion about him, but because his case is so delicate, she doesn’t want to make a hasty decision. The camera dances around them as they push and pull at each other, the psychiatrist gently nudging Jamie into revealing more about himself, which he does, unknowingly and rather terrifyingly. The performances in this episode — and, to be clear, in the other three as well — are incredible. Owen Cooper, the young actor tasked with playing Jamie, is the find of the year. He’s able to switch between innocence and insolence in a matter of seconds. This is perhaps what audiences might have felt after watching a young Edward Norton in Primal Fear.

You might expect the final episode to focus on Jamie’s trial, but true to subversive form, Adolescence delivers an intimate family drama instead. Not too long ago, the actor Fran Kranz made his directorial debut with an under-seen film called Mass. Set entirely inside a plain little room, the drama in Mass took place in the aftermath of a school shooting; it featured the parents of the perpetrator having a complicated conversation with the parents of a child he killed. Mass dealt with themes such as teenage alienation, bullying, and regret. So does the final episode of Adolescence, which reveals exactly what happened on the terrible evening when Jamie followed Katie into the park. It ends with a moment that will likely go down as one of the most memorable in modern television history. Adolescence is incendiary; it’s a haunting examination of parenthood and pubescent rage, emotional isolation and inherited trauma, ingrate influencers and mental illness. It’s what Netflix was made for.

Adolescence

Director – Philip Barantini

Cast – Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, Ashley Walters, Faye Marsay, Erin Doherty

Rating – 5/5