Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It is just before 6.15am when the armed officers arrive. The suspect, a 13-year-old boy, is still upstairs in bed as a policeman with a submachine gun charges in. There must be a mistake, his parents scream in protest as rights are read out and an arrest is made. There isn’t; their child is wanted for murder.By 7.15am the detainee, Jamie, has already been brought into custody, subjected to medical tests, introduced to a public solicitor and interrogated by detectives who have compelling evidence to suggest that he fatally stabbed a local schoolgirl. The entire hour plays out in real time with no cuts; the raid, the mundane police bureaucracy, the family’s shock all captured in one continuous shot.So begins Adolescence: a rattling, wrenching new Netflix mini-series written by playwright Jack Thorne and actor Stephen Graham that follows the aftermath of a heinous tragedy over four remarkable single-take instalments, each set in a specific moment and place. After the morning at the station, we’re taken into Jamie’s school — where the news that one classmate has murdered another sparks chaos — and later his home — where his anguished parents try to come to terms with what’s happened. A two-hander between Jamie and a psychologist, meanwhile, takes us inside the teen’s internet-addled mind.Taken together, the episodes form what might be called a state-of-the-generation drama. It explores the timeless anxieties of growing up but also examines timely concerns about the pervasiveness of “manosphere” misogyny and male rage in schools and on social media. Adolescence broaches these thorny issues with solemnity, sensitivity and an abundance of technical virtuosity. Having honed the one-take technique in 2021’s Boiling Point, series director Philip Barantini shoots with a dynamism that’s not only visually impressive but integral to making each moment feel immediate and queasily real. Despite the complex choreography presumably required to pull off the long take, the performances too are shot through with rare authenticity. Every one of the main cast compels and convinces, from Ashley Walters as a detective inspector struggling to understand today’s teens, to Erin Doherty, who plays a psychological evaluator shaken by her explosive encounter with the troubled boy. Yet among this excellent ensemble, two actors stand out. As Jamie’s father, Eddie, Stephen Graham carries the weight of intermingled feelings of love and shame, anger and self-reproach, before releasing it all in the heart-rending final minutes. And newcomer Owen Cooper is revelatory as Jamie, switching seamlessly between lost child and angry, hateful young teen capable of genuine malice; he is little short of astonishing in the profoundly disquieting two-hander episode.Being repeatedly confronted with such raw emotion and unvarnished realities can make for draining, bruising viewing, but the unblinking camera keeps watching. Adolescence asks that we do the same.★★★★★On Netflix now
