Netflix's "Adolescence"

[kenny]

Actor Owen Cooper, who plays the 13-year old boy, is amazing!

Generalization Warning:
The young and old generations have always been at odds; they live in very different versions of the same world.
Societies evolve continuously.
The young are up to date, while the old are not.
Again ... merely a generalization ... and exceptions to a generalization don't make the generalization not true.
Generalizations can be argued to be true, but only generally true.
Mysteriously, today this makes lots of people flip out.

Very often if you post a generalization someone will post an exception to it, as if to prove the generalization cannot be true.

Childless and pushing on 70, I am so out of touch with the world of today's 13 year olds (which seems to happen, almost entirely, on social media) that much of Netflix's "Adolescence" went over my head.
It also went over the heads of its two detectives solving the crime.

I just started the last of the four episodes.
Episode 3 was really riveting.

I'll post more later.
Anyone watch it?
Do!

 

[Matthews1127]

Actor Owen Cooper, who plays the 13-year old boy, is amazing!

Generalization Warning:
The young and old generations have always been at odds; they live in very different versions of the same world.
Societies evolve continuously.
The young are up to date, while the old are not.
Again ... merely a generalization ... and exceptions to a generalization don't make the generalization not true.
Generalizations can be argued to be true, but only generally true.
Mysteriously, today this makes lots of people flip out.

Very often if you post a generalization someone will post an exception to it, as if to prove the generalization cannot be true.

Childless and pushing on 70, I am so out of touch with the world of today's 13 year olds (which seems to happen, almost entirely, on social media) that much of Netflix's "Adolescence" went over my head.
It also went over the heads of its two detectives solving the crime.

I just started the last of the four episodes.
Episode 3 was really riveting.

I'll post more later.
Anyone watch it?
Do!

Hubs and I watched it, last week. Gut-wrenching. Highly recommend.

 

[Rfisher]

Yes.

Thought the parents not addressing the kid lying to them (once they found out) at all, a bit strange.
But then at the end realized I think maybe that’s the point. Or one of them.
It wasn’t ‘him’. He didn’t do anything ‘wrong’.

Did the parents come to the same conclusion at the end for themselves? I think they left that open to interpretation a bit?

I wonder if the detective would want to pull his kid to another school, after seeing what a day there was like?

 

[ShinyPink]

I plan to watch it, but for some reason I have anxiety about it- kinda like "do I want to know what's going on and face it or be happily ignorant."

 

[Matthews1127]

Yes.

Thought the parents not addressing the kid lying to them (once they found out) at all, a bit strange.
But then at the end realized I think maybe that’s the point. Or one of them.
It wasn’t ‘him’. He didn’t do anything ‘wrong’.

Did the parents come to the same conclusion at the end for themselves? I think they left that open to interpretation a bit?

I wonder if the detective would want to pull his kid to another school, after seeing what a day there was like?

I think the folks tried to believe there was some “mistake”, or that it was some trick, or that somehow, some way he didn’t do it and the video was a hoax. What parent wants to believe they raised a deviant, right?
When the admission came, it hit them, and they couldn’t hold onto hope.
That was my interpretation.

 

[ItsMainelyYou]

Excitable Boy, Warren Zevon:

Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he′s just an excitable boy
He took in the 4 a.m. show at the Clark
Excitable boy, they all said
And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he′s just an excitable boy

Ooh, ah, ooh
Ooh, ooh, excitable boy
Ooh, ah, ooh
Ooh, ooh, excitable boy

He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom (ooh, ah, ooh)
Excitable boy, they all said (ooh, ooh, excitable boy)
And he r*ped her and k*lled her (ooh, ah, ooh)
Then he took her home
Excitable boy, they all said (ooh, ooh, excitable boy)
Well, he's just an excitable boy
After ten long years, they let him out of the home
Excitable boy, they all said (ooh, ooh, excitable boy)
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy, they all said (ooh, ooh, excitable boy)
Well, he's just an excitable boy

Ooh, ah, ooh
Ooh, ooh, excitable boy
Ooh, ah, ooh
Ooh, ooh, excitable boy

Ooh, ah, ooh
Ooh, ooh, excitable boy
Ooh, ah, ooh
Ooh, ooh, excitable boy
Ooh, ah, ooh
Ooh, ooh

 

[Rockdiamond]

I’m heading to Lee ho Fooks. Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein

 

[Bianca201]

It was absolutely gut wrenching to watch. It hit way too close to home for me, with some of the young people in my world. Heartbreaking to think about the possibility.

 

[kenny]

Something else the story left ambiguous ...
The graffiti on the van was unfamiliar to me, so I looked it up.
I thought, Ah ha! that might help explain what Jamie did.
But they didn't go there.

Then there is Adolescense's amazing one-hour takes.
Usually, films are shot one scene at a time.
Then, from the many duplicate takes, they select the scenes to keep.
Finally they edit down and connecting together the many hours of keeper footage into the finished product.

But each of the four 1-hour-ish episodes of Adolescence was acted and filmed continuously in one long take. Unheard of!!!
But it does produce the feeling that you're in-the-room and you-can't-look-away, .

In other words, every actor had to memorize and nail every moment of that entire 1-hour episode, much like actors in a Broadway play.
If any actor or crew member screwed up after, say, a perfect first-50 minutes, they threw away all that perfect footage and shooting started again, from the beginning.
There was no editing after filming.

I've read this is a first time that has been done.
Other films have been carefully shot and edited to make it seem like a continuous take, but this is the first authentic example.

Imagine the complex logistics happening behind the camera that the crew had to pull off..

Better yet, don't imagine.
Watch this.

 

[Ally T]

@kenny is right about the continuous filming of each episode. - that’s a biggie & will in & of itself garner huge accolade.

The actor, Owen Cooper, is actually 15 & from my town. He has never acted in anything before & was selected for his raw innocence, which he turned into the most AMAZING acting I have ever seen from a young lad.

As somebody who works in a school, this whole drama hits home for me. ANY of the children I see could be engaged in this. It’s is horrifying & very sobering.

As an aside, Owen has recently been cast as the young Heathcliffe opposite Margot Robbie in a new Wuthering Heights movie. I see big things for this very polite young man.

 

[kenny]

Wow Wow Wow!

This 13-minute video shows how "Adolescence" shines a light on some of the most important topics that keep coming up here on PS, yet are rarely addressed, let alone so deftly.

Please watch.

 

[kenny]

... I see big things for this very polite young man.

+1

 

[finerthings]

Wow, I watched the video link @kenny! It leaves me speechless and even more worried about the mental health of the world's children. I'm so saddened, and I have thought for years that kids (not just boys either) were being emotionally neglected in our "modern" society. Just look around you and you see parents not interacting with their kids (or interacting poorly with them), everyone glued to their phones, and parents ignoring bad behaviour when appropriate redirection is needed. My kids are grown adults now, and I'm very glad that they grew up before social media was invented. The peer pressure, bullying, sex, and violence is overwheming. I worked with teens years ago at a psych hospital and I was distressed by what I was seeing back then. Kids feeling hopeless, ignored, angry, unloved and unloveable, acting out violently, selfharm... it's just so tragic. I haven't watched the Netflix series but thank you for posting this.