“Adolescence” – a modern tragedy

“Adolescence” is a 2025 British Netflix crime drama miniseries created by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne. It follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller’s arrest for murdering a classmate, filmed in four real-time, one-shot episodes, exploring toxic masculinity and social media’s impact.

It has certainly created quite a stir. Firstly it has drawn huge audiences, reaching 24 million viewers in just four days, then climbing to 66.3 million after two weeks – a new Netflix record for a limited series.

Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus reads: “Stylistically bold and beautifully acted from top to bottom, ‘Adolescence’ is a masterclass in televisual storytelling and a searing viewing experience that scars.” Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, calculated a score of 91 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, indicating “universal acclaim.”

I think two factors drive its unprecedented success: its subject matter and the presentation of that subject matter.

Clearly, the subject matter has resonated with viewers in a way few topics could. The four episodes address the most burning issue of our time with raw realism: the effect of the web on society in general, and on young people in particular. This issue touches everyone, and parents are increasingly preoccupied with it. It appears that parents and educators are witnessing something deeply troubling happening to the young, or they are discovering this through works like Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation.

There has been some controversy over the series, fuelled not least by a claim – echoed on X by Elon Musk – that it was inspired by stabbings carried out by Black male migrants in the UK, but that this was changed to a killing by a white, English boy. Co-creator Jack Thorne clarified that “Adolescence” is not based on any specific real-life case and focuses on masculinity rather than race.

Certainly, “toxic masculinity” is central to the drama: the 13-year-old boy who commits the fatal stabbing has been radicalised online by the “manosphere” – an online subculture of men’s communities focused on traditional masculinity, anti-feminism, and self-improvement. The infamous Andrew Tate – mentioned once in the series – embodies a reaction against the perceived emasculation of men by feminism, embracing a hyper-masculine spirit of self-assertiveness, self-reliance, and wealth accumulation.

Regarding presentation, the series has received great acclaim for its acting, particularly Owen Cooper’s performance as 13-year-old Jamie Miller at the story’s centre. Erin Doherty’s intense portrayal of psychologist Briony Ariston in the third episode has also earned much praise. Another striking feature is that each episode is a single continuous shot, with no breaks or CGI blending of cuts. While some have called this gimmicky, I believe it undeniably heightens the raw effect of each episode, producing gut-wrenching realism in the third and fourth episodes especially. The beautiful conclusion of the second episode involves a seamless transition to drone footage for the final poignant minutes, as Jamie’s father, Eddie (played by Stephen Graham, also co-producer), places flowers at the spot where his son stabbed his schoolmate to death.

Some seem intent on reducing the series to a simple morality tale about the dangers of toxic masculinity. British Labour MP Anneliese Midgley has advocated for screenings in Parliament and schools to counter misogyny, a proposal backed by Keir Starmer. But it would be a missed opportunity if this became the standard interpretation. Clearly, 13-year-old Jamie’s murder of his schoolmate stems directly from the violent hyper-masculinity he absorbed from the “manosphere.” Yet Jamie is not a misogynist, as shown by his deep affection for forensic psychologist Briony Ariston, evident in his distress and rage upon learning she will no longer visit him. The other “angry male,” his father Eddie, though prone to bouts of rage, is clearly a loving husband and father to his daughter.

There are no cartoon villains in the series. An abiding sense of tragedy prevails precisely because we feel for Jamie so much – we see him as his parents do: a little boy with a teddy bear on his bed who wets himself as armed police arrest him in his bedroom. The young girl he murders is a bully who cruelly humiliated Jamie online.

It would be a pity to weaponise the series or reduce it to a feminist warning about toxic masculinity. It seems to me as much a story about the alienation of young people from the adult world and even from one another. In this regard, Jamie’s school – Bruntwood Academy – visited by detectives the second episode is simply awful: kids clearly ostracise and bully one another, teachers hate being there, and even the head-mistress seems to be completely at a loss as to what to make of the pupils. Tellingly, the only relationship with a real bond of understanding between a young person and an adult is between Jamie and his father, Eddie. The other father, Detective Luke Bascombe – who one might have assumed to be quite “with it” – is an embarrassment to his son, another pupil at Bruntwood Academy, due to his ignorance of youth subculture and lingo. Equally revealing is the discussion between Jade – the distraught best friend of the murder victim – and the benign school counsellor, Mrs. Bailey. The latter is consoling Jade well until the dialogue takes this turn:

Mrs. Bailey: (nodding, stepping closer) I hear you, Jade. You’re not in trouble – not with me. But you can’t keep bottling this up, lashing out like that. How about we get someone for you to talk to? Not a teacher, someone proper –   

Jade: (snapping, stepping back) What, another shrink? No way! F..k that!

Mrs. Bailey: (calm but firm) It’s not a shrink like before, love. Just someone to listen, to help you through this. You don’t have to be alone with it.

Jade: (shouting, tears spilling) I said no! You don’t get it – I don’t want some stranger poking around in my head! (storms toward the door) I’m done here.

Where Jade needs – and almost seems to be about to get – genuine care and affection, all the school can offer her is a clinician.

I suspect the final dialogue between Eddie Miller and his wife Manda in the final episode will resonate most with parents. The creators deliberately avoided portraying the murderer’s parents as dysfunctional drinkers or deeply flawed in some way. Both are quite lovable. During their trip to the hardware shop, they sing Manda’s favourite song, A-ha’s “Take on Me,” and reminisce laughingly about a funny moment from their teens. However, the scene ends with both tearfully realising they must have failed their son Jamie somehow:

Eddie: “He was such a good kid, wasn’t he? Always smiling, running around with that daft grin.”

Manda: “Yeah… Where’d that go, Eddie? What did we miss?”

Eddie: “I thought… I thought we gave him everything. A home, love, all of it.”

Manda: “Maybe we didn’t see him. Not really. Not when it mattered.”

The scene is made more poignant by the fact that Jamie’s room is adjacent to theirs, complete with a teddy bear on his pillow and posters on the wall. Yet in this small bedroom, just feet away from a loving mum and dad, he sought answers online to the anguish he experienced at school.

The series has resonated in an unprecedented manner, not because it deals with the “manosphere” per se, but because it deals with the effect the web is having on the lives of young people and shows how clueless the adult world appears to be. The tragedy it explores is not just the lost life of a teenage girl, but the tragedy of a society of multiple alienations, of young people with no real friends and no real connection with the generation of their parents and teachers. In this, “Adolescence” seems to be me to be a masterpiece of social commentary.