No wonder the new Adolescence Netflix series, about a teenage stabbing, has been getting rave reviews. For a start, it’s one-scene/one-shot technique is mesmerising, as if the viewer is the camera, close up and right at the centre of the action, rather than viewing from afar.
Well done to the actors for carrying off what must have been a huge challenge, especially getting their lines right over a long and technical scene. For 15-year-old Owen Cooper, it was a particular triumph in an emotionally demanding role as the youngster accused of murdering his schoolmate. As for seasoned actor Stephen Graham as the father, he was as superb as ever.
But the real success of the series is it reveals the horror and agony behind the massive upsurge in knife crime among young people all over the UK in recent years. And still rising.
Netflix’s Adolescence should be watched by every teen in the country
If I had my way, I would make watching this four-parter compulsory for every parent and teenager in the country. Most of them, thankfully, don’t know exactly what it’s like to be arrested for a serious crime; how intimidating, indeed terrifying, it can be for the suspect and those close to him or her.
Equally, most parents probably could never conceive their child would be guilty of using a knife on another person. But when faced with exactly that scenario, it devastates the entire family.
If watching this rams home the message of how such stabbings rip apart not only the lives of the victims and their loved ones but also of the attackers, then good on the programme-makers. Sadly, I doubt there’s any foolproof method of keeping these weapons out of the hands of adolescents, transforming them from the children they were not that long ago, to potential killers.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal and started her journalism career in 1970.
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