O P I N I O N

NOT THAT PROFOUND

By Nate Graziano

A few weeks ago, a colleague stopped me in the hallway and asked if I had watched “Adolescence,” a new Netflix series that premiered on March 13.

“I haven’t had time,” I lied, knowing well that I’ve been battling depression, popping edibles then plopping down on the couch each night to watch hours of “Cheers” reruns, the only show that seems to “cheer” me.

“You need to check it out,” she said. “It’s a British show that has a lot of people talking. It’s only four 50-minute episodes, and each episode is a single shot. It’s pretty amazing.”

“I’ll check it out,” I said, impressed by the fact that each episode was done in one shot and curious to see what that looked like.

But then I promptly forgot about it.

A similar conversation ensued a couple of days later when we ran into each other at a school assembly and, again, I promised to check it out. Then I started reading about the show and realized that it has created quite a global buzz and has become one of the most viewed Netflix shows ever.

So I went home and watched the first three episodes with my wife, and while I’m far from an expert on television and film, I can honestly say that it is the best television show that I’ve seen—network, cable, or streaming service—since I first binged “Breaking Bad” circa 2014.

Like any good art, “Adolescence” employs the mantra Ezra Pound and the Modernists made famous and “make[s] it new.” The camera work and blocking in each episode alone is enough to make anyone with a rudimentary understanding of cinematography slack-jawed.

And like any work of art that taps into the current zeitgeist, “Adolescence” has audiences not only buzzing about the show but turning the mirror on ourselves and asking pressing questions about our kids in the modern world.

The premise—and I will tread lightly here to keep from leaking spoilers—is straightforward and daunting: a 13-year-old boy Jaime Miller (played brilliantly by newcomer Owen Cooper) is accused of stabbing one of his female classmates to death, and each episode examines the rippling effects of Jaime’s alleged crime on his family, classmates and community.

With such a high stakes conflict, “Adolescence” is thankfully able to sidestep the melodrama and cheap frills found in most crime series. The show urges us—the adults—to look deeper into the fraught lives of kids today who are growing up online and addicted to their phones.

The second episode is set in the high school where Jaime attends and, from my experiences, this is one of the most accurate depictions of what high schools look like today. The students are glued to their phones as the teachers try futilely to get them to put the phones away, only to be met with impudence and derision. It is chaos of the highest order.

And the show also illuminates the toxic environments on social media, a ground zero for bullying. It illuminates our adolescents’s relentless need for attention while simultaneously being groomed with misinformation. Most terrifying is how the show examines the phenomena of the young male rage, birthed by misogyny and said misinformation online, as well as the elevation of sexual predators into positions of power and prominence.

Much of any show’s relevance is determined by timing, and “Adolescence” is the right show at exactly the right time. It is not an easy show to watch—particularly with the tempests swirling in the skies these days—but it is important that we don’t ignore the issues that it addresses.

Want to talk about it? Nate Graziano is all ears: ngrazio5@yahoo.com