The trailer showcases Graham (who also co-wrote) as the father of a 13-year-old boy (Owen Cooper) who’s been accused of the murder of one of his young female classmates, tearing their family and their community apart. We also get to see the detective investigating the murder (Ashley Walters), although the show’s press materials make it clear that we’re not tuning in to see an elaborate mystery set up by a criminal mastermind, so much as an exploration of what can go wrong in a young person’s brain when exposed to the proper kinds of poison. (Netflix notes that the series is less a whodunit than a whydunit.) That also includes an appearance from Erin Doherty (from The Crown and Graham’s own A Thousand Blows) as the psychiatrist trying to figure out why young Jamie Miller either did or did not do what he ended up doing. (Or not doing.)
Interestingly, the trailer doesn’t attempt to export or show off Adolescence‘s most interesting formal touch: The decision to present each of its four episodes as single hour-long shot. (Something Graham and director Philip Barantini previously played with for their 2021 film Boiling Point.) TV productions have been showing off with oners for years at this point, but making it the whole gimmick of your series is still noteworthy—which makes it a little odd that the trailer doesn’t even feint toward it, and instead features tons of rapid cuts. We’re not saying there isn’t plenty to dig into here, re: all the potentially deadly teenaged boys of it all, but the trailer’s definitely not conveying the full experience of what watching the show will presumably be like.
Adolescence launches on Netflix on March 13.
