"Adolescence" Trailer: A Father Struggles to Understand His Son's Role in a Shocking Murder in This New Netflix Series Starring Stephen Graham
Boiling Point director Philip Barantini reunites with Stephen Graham for this British Netflix limited series exploring toxic masculinity, youth radicalization, and a father’s worst nightmare.
British actor Stephen Graham has quietly become an industry powerhouse, not just as a performer but as a producer shaping his own projects. Just last week, he kicked off A Thousand Blows, a historical drama series on Hulu set in the gritty world of illegal bare-knuckle boxing in 1880s London. Not only does Graham co-star, but he also developed the show alongside his wife and producing partner, Hannah Walters. In fact, it was Walters who first suggested reaching out to Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight to write and create the series, based on real historical photos and figures of that era. To their shock and delight, Knight agreed—and the result is now a critically acclaimed Hulu show.
But if you think Graham is taking a breather after A Thousand Blows, think again. He’s moving full steam ahead, now jumping into a new Netflix limited series called Adolescence, which explores the gut-wrenching tragedy of a schoolgirl’s murder. Once again, Graham is working both sides of the camera as executive producer and co-star.
In this British drama, Graham plays a father who is blindsided when his 13-year-old son is accused of murdering a classmate. As his son sits in police custody, Graham’s character struggles to believe that his "good boy" could be capable of such a heinous act. But as the drama unfolds, he learns his son has been spiraling for months due to relentless bullying at school. The bigger shock, however, is he discovers that his son's generation has an entirely different—and deeply troubling—view of masculinity.
"Dad, you're not reading what they're doing," a teenager reveals to his policeman father who's investigating the crime in an eye-raising moment in the newly-released trailer (watch it above). "It's a call to action by the manosphere. 80 percent of women are attracted to 20 percent of men. You must trick them 'cause you'll never get them in a normal way."
The implication is deeply disturbing here—young boys are being fed the beliefs that they are not only entitled to women but must deceive them to get what they want. This raises an unsettling question: Is Graham’s seemingly "innocent" son truly harmless? Or has he been hiding a deep, festering rage fueled by a victimhood mentality?
Graham reunites with his A Thousand Blows co-star Erin Doherty as a child psychologist. Others in the cast include Ashley Walters (Top Boy), Faye Marsay (Game of Thrones), Christine Tremarco (Casualty), Mark Stanley (Game of Thrones), and Jo Hartley (This Is England) with the introduction of newcomer Owen Cooper as Graham's son.
Created by Graham alongside acclaimed British writer Jack Thorne (Netflix's Enola Holmes, HBO's His Dark Materials), the series is directed by Philip Barantini, the acclaimed 2021 restaurant kitchen drama Boiling Point, which not only starred Graham but was also shot in one long continuous shot. The series is said to employ a similar technique, using one long continuous shot to rev up the intensity of the scenes.
Adolescence premieres Thursday, March 13 only on Netflix.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Adolescence tells the story of how a family’s world is turned upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl who goes to his school. Stephen Graham plays Jamie’s father and ‘appropriate adult’, Eddie Miller. Ashley Walters stars as Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe, and Erin Doherty is Briony Ariston, the clinical psychologist assigned to Jamie’s case.
