Adolescence

[heartsinvisiblefury]

What an amazing piece of television. Stephen Graham is exceptional. Highly recommend this - on Netflix.

We were talking about it in work today, a new start tried to mansplain it to me because I said I didn't like it. Then he told me I didn't have the emotional intelligence to understand it.
I've worked with children with severe behaviour issues for 30 years 🙄

I fully understand why people enjoyed the program, the actors, the sets, the striking, cinematography, and so on. However, I also do see why people who work in the area would have problems with it be that teachers, police, legal or whatever). I worked in LMP for 5 years, and then in legal area, so I've some experience.

Personally, I found the absence of the victim story, and her family to be a HUGE gap. People often read the headlines for crimes, and the victims and their families are very poorly served.

The police officer literally said as much outside the school and I thought it was so accurate - I barely remember the victim's names and it's clearly widespread.

Wanted so much to love this after all the amazing reviews, but as so often, turned out it was completely overhyped. Mostly it was really boring, especially in the last episode. And as someone else said, episode 2 was a joke. The school scenes were ludicrously unbelievable, and some of the acting from the kids was dire. No one seemed particularly bothered that a pupil/ classmate had just been brutally murdered!

I wasted roughly four hours of my life watching this.

It could have been so good. It had the potential to be so good.

But the script was awful, too many scenes were too long and boring (wtf was that car scene?! and the parents conversation that seemed to last 18 hours in the bedroom in the final episode)

Maybe it didn't tap into me like it did others because I'm not a parent. Then again that just makes me appreciate really good script writers who can get me hooked into contexts that I have no real life experience in.

She didnt

she said he’d come in and go straight to his room

he’d be in his room on his own all evening

she’d see his light still on at 1am and tell him to turn it off because he had school in the morning and she was worried he was staying up too late

I thought it was excellent - I love Stephen Graham and also thought Ashley Walters was great (also having him cast has had my 17 year old watch it too). I think it was the resonance of having a son about the same age and looking at Jamie he just looked like so many of his friends and when the parents were talking about the mistakes they made - honestly it could be any one of us (well I put my hand up to it anyway).

It started with me feeling really sorry for him and thinking he was some sort of innocent in the whole thing but the episode 3 was amazing and such a turnaround. That whole episode with it's microaggressions that woman have to go through every day but also slightly seeing it from the security guard's POV too. So nuanced and brilliant.

Also episode 4 pretty much broke me.

I misheard, that explanation makes more sense.

I binged it all yesterday and it was a hard watch, imo. Can I just say that the arrest and into custody scenes were absolutely bang on correct; the exception being a duty solicitor arriving within minutes 🤣

The lad playing the role of Jamie was exceptional . He's a great future ahead IMO.

The other thing I noticed was the psychologist is the woman who plays Mary in A Thousand Blows on Disney, also starring Mr Graham... 🤔

Yes I've been told it all went over my head as I'm some thicko. Everything about is was absolute rubbish <imo>, from Graham playing himself staring and sniffing as usual, to the psychologist episode with lots more staring but with added teenage strops then to the last painfully boring b&q ep.

It's like whoever made the quite good ep 1 naffed off and left the work experience kid in charge of the rest.

Exactly how I felt

I'm two eps in so third tonight.

Sadly I'm in agreement with others re Stephen Graham. He's been in some gripping dramas and seems to be the go to choice for producers to cast when looking for angst ridden characters. He's got the face for it. That wasn't intended as anything but how I see the actor. Yes he's a good actor but sometimes I see a new advertised drama and think ah there he is again.

I was puzzled and shocked watching the school scenes. Is that really how the police would act?

Stephen Graham's wife, Hannah Walters, is the co-founder of Matriarch Productions who co-produced this series and so is probably allowed to shoehorn herself in!

'The lad playing the role of Jamie was exceptional '**

Exceptional at what? Looking baby faced and innocent in the police station but trying and failing to look scary with the psychologist? The kid who played his pal and ran off after leaping thought the window had a much better innocent face/sullen face thing going on.

Yes!

i completely agree. I get that the focus is meant to be on how this happens to boys and a warning to parents but I don’t think the balance was right.

Even the story about the parents it was all self pity and about them and Jamie. They didn’t seem to recognise they’ll probably get him home in his 30s but Katie’s family have lost her forever

Yes - his recent school reports had apparently highlighted behaviour issues

And also the dad dragging him to football when he wasn’t any good at it. My husband and sons have never been into football but I’ve heard so much about terrible behaviour from parents (dads) screaming and shouting at kids football, being abusive to match officials, etc. I’ve been to a couple of football matches (work/hospitality) and the atmosphere of toxic masculinity has been horrid. What if anything can we do, if this is just men?

My son’s in his 20s so it’s years since he played kids league football so this is from memory, parents can be banned from the pitch side if they shout anything other than positive stuff at either the players or the ref or coaches/managers. Check grassroots football if you’re interested. And it’s not just men, there’s plenty of women who are overly invested and competitive on behalf of their children. One boy used to be happiest when sat on the subs bench chatting with the others much to his mothers disgust.

Jamie Bulger's killers were young, baby faced teens who had trauma in their childhood, I don't remember anyone feeing sorry for them.
I couldn't feel any sorrow for Jamie who stabbed another child to death, the best they could come up with was his Dad didn't support him at football?
The incel part was mentioned out of the blue and hardly referred to again.

Why couldn’t the psychologist offer any words of affirmation to the boy, when he was desperate for some recognition and acknowledgment that he had some good qualities? I thought clinical psychologists were taught to have ‘unconditional positive regard?’

Exactly.

So many crap parents about but these 2 hardly fit the bill.

It's like we're enabling murderers and their terrible crimes. Aw poor Jamie, he didn't really like footie snd his dad was a bit shouty occasionally so he was radicalised 🙄.

I used to take one of ours to a class on a Sat they weren't overly keen on <or very good at> but I thought it was a good idea to have some activities out of school. Fortunately they haven't stabbed anyone repeatedly.

I wondered this too. How accurate was that portrayal?

https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/owen-cooper-wuthering-heights-heathcliff-newsupdate/

Just seen that Owen Cooper has been cast as young Heathcliff in new Wuthering Heights film.