Review: ADOLESCENCE, the disturbing Netflix Series

The father confronts the moment of truth as the 13-year-old Jamie Miller looks on (Adolescence)

Parenting skills are among the most gaping holes in the social competence matrix in today’s confusing milieu. 

Amidst their hectic professional and achievement-seeking lifestyle, most parents take for granted the most important skill they should rightly be concerned about - bringing up their children with attention, empathy, love and sensitivity. The children themselves are on a razer’s edge, with unbridled exposure to social media, peer group pressures and aggressive individualism that gets reinforced from the early days of education and socializing.

When unfortunate and unexpected behavioural fallouts of alienation and emotional bruises show up and the children get sucked into circumstances, actions and consequences with dire consequences on their lives and future, it often is too late for parental actions. The greatest misery as parents would be feeling helpless and blank about the situation with no idea what to do to save their children from what looks like an inevitable fall off the precipice.

Adolescence, the Netflix series currently on, brings out this topical parental conundrum emphatically and with intense impact on viewers.

A 13-year-old boy gets drawn into the murder of his female classmate, who was bullying him and two of his mates over time; the animosity turned into pent-up hurt and revenge, resulting in the girl getting knifed, outside the school.

The show presents the sense of guilt and remorse over the horrible queering of parenting ability that the father, Eddie Miller feels. Owen Cooper brings out a brilliant performance as Jamie Miller, the boy still at the periphery of childhood innocence.

It is a poignant moment when the boy phones in from the custody centre and tells his dad that he has agreed to plead guilty. Jamie greets his dad on his birthday, enquires if he has received the hand-drawn birthday card that he sent by mail from the jail and then breaks the news of his confession.

Eddie, who is huddled with Jamie’s mother and sister and quietly having his birthday, is stoic but cannot resist breaking down as the intensity of the context sinks in. The mother quietly spends moments of grief and then pretending to be normal walks over to join her husband and daughter. Eddie fondles and kisses Jamie’s Teddy Bear.

The show leaves a powerful question on the state of parenting competence and its challenges in the digital and open society of ours.

The relevance of the theme and the outstanding, restrained and emotive performances of the actors make the series a must-watch.