I watched Adolescence

Going to try to write this like I do on Letterboxd, a series of observations not so smoothed into essay form.

the main thought i have is about how the one shot, the moving through buildings, the complex sets or locations... it gives a sense of the characters all being embedded within larger systems. the sense of... not powerlessness, the characters often have agency within those systems, but they can't transcend those systems, they can rarely even change those systems. this comes out most strongly in the first ep, i think, where there's so much procedural stuff about getting him booked in, all the rules about what's allowed to happen, all the different roles different people play in the process. this idea continues into the second ep, the school, the coppers explicitly talking about how dehumanising it is. the smell, the keycards, booking in at reception. third ep - well, it's mainly in one room, but that room is in the center of a very particular kind of institution, there's the CCTV... there's still that sense of the system, the claustrophobia, here's a single pocket but you can't forget that it's within something larger. and then the fourth ep, which should feel freeing, we're finally out of The Institutions - but actually instead you have the family as a system and you have wider society as a system. there's not too many stories about existing within larger systems where the systems themselves take the stage in this way. where they are shown so vividly on the screen.

the message that the series is about, the stuff about the radicalisation of young men. i mean, i'm not really the target audience for this, i can't find any shock or surprise in me for this. i have been in videogame spaces for over a decade, i have friends who went through the very maw of gamergate, it is Known. and, y'know, good that people who are not in these spaces are also hearing about it, good that it's being taken seriously, i hope there's some shift or some change here. i'm sceptical, though, because the people this is targeted at feel like they're going to be very liberal centrist about it and fundamentally i don't think that they can make changes that actually grasp onto the problem[1]. i feel tired of the thinkpieces without even reading them. but that's not the show, that's what surrounds it. the show is very much about opening up big messy questions rather than providing neat answers.

but there's still some tweeness about how it talks about this stuff. the bits with the cop getting told by his son how it works, it felt a bit cringe to me. but i mean also maybe necessary for the audience? i am rapidly approaching my forties but i don't feel this binary gulf between the kids and the adults applies here.

i mean but also this feels a bit like nitpicking, the writing, the performances... so strong. and again, the one shot means we stay with them, the spaces between actions matter more. i mean, the whole show is the space between actions - the space between the murder and the court case. it's all reflections on what it means.

some of watching this & discussing it with folks makes me think of one of my happiest TV memories, watching Terrace House with KB and pausing it because we had so much to say on the way they were interacting with each other, how the commentators talking about the interactions were commentating. reading the subtle tones of – okay, so for example i was talking with someone about ep 3, and the different attitudes between the guard outside the door and the CCTV guy. the moment of sharpness when she tells the guard she wants him outside the room. that that betrays the stress she's under in a possibly counterproductive way, but is also justified. a whole conversation from a single line. fundamentally it's an exercise in insight, body language, picking up on small cues and constructing the mental model of the other person. and that there's this richness, that the show lays this bare, is interested in this level of detail... that's what's special about it, not the fancy transfers to drone shots.

the kid, just thinking about how when we first see him he's tiny, huddled in bed, pissing himself. even knowing the premise, having seen the publicity shots, still you hesitate that this would be the person they're here for. and then the arc of the first episode from that to the CCTV footage of the murder. the viewpoint pivoting from innocent child to violent adult. and then ep 3, it's not a slow shift but instead flashing between the two, almost within a sentence sometimes. the way he talks, the language, the code switching. it feels prismatic. beautiful acting to shift between those two spaces that way.

and the setting we come in on, the bedroom, the star wallpaper & the cuddly toy. the childhoodness of it, the history encoded into the room. a place of innocence? but then the camera pans over and we see the desk and the computer, and actually also this is, in a meaningful way, the scene of the crime. no wonder here's where the final scene happens, too.

again with the lack of shock of the message - similarly i think i found myself a lot less distressed by the misogyny on display than others did. the anger, the threat. i imagine myself in that room in episode 3, and i imagine being the interviewer, and i imagine myself in control of the situation. she's nudging into particular volatile territory, and it's hard emotionally for him, and that's when he escalates, as defence. the anger shows... well, not that it's working, the point is not to provoke, but still ultimately she's the one steering the situation. if i was in that situation, i would struggle not to smile, i think i am saying. is that weird?

and about him - i can't find it in myself to hate or fear him, even given his actions. i just find myself feeling so deeply sorry for him, that he's gotten lost in this sense of himself, in these ideas of where value comes from, and how the world works. they're self sustaining, they perpetuate as a mental system. and yet they're so profoundly bad at leading to a good life. i mean, for other people as well as for him, sure. but also for him. that cry at the end from him, that's the one that haunts me - do you think i'm a good person? am i worthwhile? i just want normal human love and respect and this is how i thought i could find it. so deeply lost. what a fucking tragedy to lose yourself this way, and what a tragedy that so many real people have and are.

the way the light plays on people's faces in this. i wonder how much of the shot selection came down to the sunshine. thinking about the quote about acting on stage & acting on screen. a movement across a stage versus a movement across a face.

anyway, yeah, great television. space and light and people and systems. not "fun" but feels like deep art.

[1]: just tabbed away from editing this and saw that apparently the push is to ban kids using phones during school hours. yes, ok, exactly my point, that is not going to solve anything.

oh, an afterthought: god i love the matter of fact way this show depicts British suburbia. just feels good to see the places i grew up be represented this way. a home that actually looks like a home i can imagine. a school that looks like a school i went to. a police station... okay, i don't have that many experiences of police stations, but the chairs stacked, the squeaky floors, the atmosphere is familiar. i spend so long on the TV staring at images of America or images of wealth or self referential television cliches, to see something that looks real & normal feels a little surprising.