The brutal British miniseries that will chill parents' blood.

BarcelonaA group of police officers break down the door of a family home and, to the panic of some parents, arrest the 13-year-old son, accused of killing a classmate. This is how the miniseries begins. Adolescence, from Netflix, which consists of four episodes, all filmed in a single sequence shot. The British series, which lands on the platform this Thursday and promises to be one of the sensations of the coming weeks, is co-created by and stars Stephen Graham, who directed the film. It boils, also filmed using a single sequence shot. Beyond formal issues, the fiction poses a plot that will chill the blood of those viewers who are parents, and also those who are not. Can the son of a conventional family kill someone in cold blood? What responsibility does society have in such a heinous act?

"One of our objectives was to ask ourselves, 'What is happening to young boys today and what pressures are they under from their peers, the internet, and social media?' And the pressures that come from all these things are as difficult for children here [in England] as they are around the world," explained Graham, who plays the father of the arrested teenager, during the presentation of the series. The idea of making this miniseries began to take shape following the case of the 17-year-old teenager who last summer stabbed three girls—aged 6, 7, and 9—to death in the city of Southport, in the north of England. Eight other people were injured.

Graham explains that after hearing this news, and having also read other information about teenagers who had murdered young girls, he wanted to carry out a project that would allow for social reflection and that would have the formal style that he and director Philip Barantini developed with It boils"We could have made a drama about gangs and knife crime, or about a child whose mother is an alcoholic or whose father is a violent abuser," Graham explains. "Instead, we wanted the viewer to look at this family and think, 'Oh my God. This could be happening to us!' And what's happening here is a normal family's worst nightmare," he says. Graham is one of Britain's most renowned actors. On television, he has appeared in series such as Line of Duty, The virtues or Thousand Cups, which has barely been released on Disney+.

In the first episode, viewers witness the arrest and interrogation of Jamie, played by newcomer Owen Cooper. In the following three episodes, there is a time jump. In the second, detectives interrogate Jamie's friends and other students at school. In the next, the arrested young man has a very tense session with a psychologist. The last episode analyzes the consequences that the protagonist's incarceration has for his family, especially his father, Eddie.

The decision that all the episodes would be shot in a single sequence shot poses significant technical complications. "Basically, what shooting in a single sequence shot means is that we press the memory of the camera and we do not press the one stop almost to the end of the hour-long episode. But it's much more complicated than it seems. It involves months of preparation and weeks of rehearsals, as well as an incredible team of people capable of developing this sequence plan in all phases of production, from the script to the locations, including production design and planning where and from what angle the filming will take place," explains Barantini, who directed the miniseries as the main element of Barantini'sAdolescence It is not that technical element but the story that is told.