netflix – Scene by Green

Adolescence (2025)

Philip Barantini | 4 episodes (51 – 65 min)

In a small English police station, 13-year-old Jamie Miller is charged with the murder of his classmate, Katie Leonard. Back at school, an entire community is left reeling with confusion and grief over what has unfolded. In a youth detention centre, Jamie’s motives are uncovered by a forensic psychologist, and some months later his family continue to grapple with the long-term consequences in their own home. Four snapshots across thirteen months are all that Philip Barantini needs to uncover the humanity in the horror of Adolescence, plunge into its despairing depths, and lift this crime beyond the sort of freak occurrence that most people are fortunate enough to only ever see in news headlines.

Where a lesser series would thinly spread its sprawling drama across dozens of episodes, Adolescence weaves the fragmented nature of television into its very structure, dedicating an hour at a time to its characters’ messy lives. It is not an anthology of self-contained stories, but neither does it maintain the straightforward continuity that we often expect from serial dramas, letting us fill in the days and months that separate episodes. As such, its narrative economy is remarkably efficient, unravelling four vignettes in real time while intertwining the movements of police officers, students, and relatives.

*We are pulled right into the action with this in media res opening, storming the Miller household as the police pull Jamie from bed – all captured in one continuous take of course.*

Barantini’s stylistic conceit of playing out each episode in single, continuous takes must be credited for our immersion in this harrowing study of modern-age masculinity. Right from the in media res opening of episode 1, we are launched into the police force’s raid of the Miller residence, sharing in the same shock as Jamie’s panicked family as he is arrested. The handheld camerawork keeps us in Barantini’s tight grip, disorientating us as we move with Jamie from the house into the police van where we finally get a moment to collect ourselves. In the absence of cuts, we sombrely sit with him for several minutes during his transportation to the police station, tuning out the adults’ muffled speech while a tense, ticking score takes over. The sheer length of sequences like these only deepens our discomfort in Adolescence, growing our dread throughout this first episode.

*Barantini orchestrates his camera’s push and pull between wide shots and close-ups beautifully, anxiously tightening on Jamie’s face as his fingerprints and mugshot are taken.*

When Jamie’s mug shot and fingerprints are taken, again we hang on the unspoken guilt written across his face, while the agonising humiliation suffered by his father Eddie is given an agonising close-up during the young teen’s strip search. In the consultation room, Jamie’s blue jumper blends in with the muted, melancholy tones of the walls around him, where the camera tentatively circles the emergence of truth. Jamie was caught on CCTV footage stabbing Katie to death in a parking lot the previous night, we eventually learn, effectively rupturing the innocence of a community which never believed such a barbaric act could be committed by one of their own – and least of all by a child.

*Adolescence doesn’t feature overly gorgeous mise-en-scène, but the muted blues in the police station and costuming make for an admirable standout in episode 1.*

Episode 2 is set only a couple of days later, though it delivers an impressive sense of scale by widening its focus to the staff and students at Jamie’s school, many of whom become witnesses in DI Luke Bascombe’s investigation. With his son Adam only a few years above Jamie, his personal life is not entirely removed from this case, and in their emotionally estranged relationship we begin to see patterns emerge between the fathers and sons of Adolescence. Here, Barantini locks onto the social influences which slyly insinuated themselves in Jamie’s life, mixing a lethal Gen Z cocktail of cyberbullying and incel propaganda with the sort of male insecurities even older generations would recognise.

*Episode 2 widens its focus to an entire community impacted by Jamie’s crime, skilfully navigating the school grounds and classrooms where his worst influences begin to show their faces.*

*Patterns emerge between fathers and sons in Adolescence, revealing an emotional estrangement in otherwise close relationships.*

This episode features what may be Barantini’s singularly most ambitious shot, traversing the school grounds, classrooms, and offices to reveal the interconnectedness of the local community. The camera often hitches onto characters as they move from one location to the next, linking conflicting accounts of Jamie and Katie’s relationship to a secret emoji language, and the missing murder weapon to Jamie’s friends. During its final minutes, Barantini even seamlessly lifts the camera into a drone shot flying over the entire neighbourhood to a choral rendition of ‘Fragile’, echoing its mournful lyrics as it eventually descends to witness a mournful Eddie laying flowers at the site of Katie’s murder.

*A breathtaking highlight of Barantini’s soaring camerawork, lifting the camera above the school, flying over the town…*

*…and eventually descending into a close-up of Eddie’s face, laying flowers at Katie’s shrine.*

With all this said, the greatest hindrance to Barantini’s long takes are Adolescence’s lengthy dialogue scenes, often leaving the camera to wander without aim or purpose. Within these moments, its ambitions fall far behind other one-take films such as Birdman or Victoria, and this especially becomes restrictive in the single room setting of episode 3. The staging in Jamie’s detention centre is more akin to a play than anything else, focusing on his examination by forensic psychologist Briony Ariston, though in exchange young actor Owen Cooper is given a platform to deliver some of the most outstanding acting of the series.

The stagebound setting of episode 3 doesn’t quite earn its one-take conceit, but nevertheless underscores two brilliant performances at its centre, particularly from the incredibly talented Owen Cooper.

In Jamie’s frustration at Briony’s line of questioning, we see a teenage boy who can’t quite grasp his own emotions, resisting any attempt to probe deeper in fear of what he may find. “Are you allowed to talk about this?” he uneasily asks about half a dozen times when the topic turns to sex, repeating the phrase almost as often as his baseless claim – “I didn’t do it.” Unable to reconcile his guilt and dignity, he desperately tries to convince himself of his innocence, denying the traumatic reality of his actions. When this cognitive dissonance is threatened, he falls back on intimidation tactics to retake control from Briony, throwing insults and even a chair in bitter anger. She is perturbed, yet actress Erin Doherty holds a steel nerve against his torment, only ever revealing how deeply this experience cuts away from his judgemental eyes.

*A brief respite in the corridor outside – this line of work is incredibly taxing for Briony, only letting her guard drop away from Jamie’s eyes.*

In Jamie’s quieter moments too, Cooper’s angsty performance remains strong, unassumingly being coaxed into contemplating his relationship with his father. When he asked if he is loving, Jamie’s responds is dismissive – “No, that’s weird” – and as Adolescence moves into episode 4, Barantini allows this regretful man to take the final word on the matter. Thirteen months after the murder, the Miller family wrestles with the long-term ramifications of Jamie’s actions which have singled them out in their community as pariahs. Glimmers of healing emerge during their drive to the local hardware store, looking for paint to cover up the graffiti left on Eddie’s van, but even this simple outing cannot escape the cruel taunts of teenagers or conspiracy theorists chillingly advocating for Jamie’s innocence.

Isolated and ridiculed in their own community, the Millers desperately hold the remnants of their lives together in episode 4, as Barantini turns something as simple as a trip to the local hardware store into an entire ordeal.

*Online incel culture latches onto Jamie’s story and chillingly manifests in real life.*

*Eddie splashes black paint across his van in a fit of rage, finding no other release for his emotions.*

Finally exhausting his patience, Eddie throws his fresh tin of paint all over the van, and in this moment we see flashes of the boy who only last episode tossed a chair in anger. Retreating to Jamie’s room with his wife Manda, Eddie ponders where it all went wrong, at which point the dialogue begins spell out its themes a little too directly. The screenplay weakens here, exchanging subtext for literalism, yet Barantini nevertheless succeeds in bringing Jamie’s story full circle back to his biggest influence.

Eddie’s failure isn’t as simple as him being a bad father – that much is clear from the anguished guilt of Stephen Graham’s performance. “If my dad made me, how did I make that?” he laments, beginning to recognise how deeply entrenched his worst habits are in his own childhood and parenting. As he cries into Jamie’s bed, the blues we observed in the police station return in darker shades to envelop him in a familiar sorrow, yet this time allowing an honest outpouring of suppressed emotions. It is a catharsis that we have eagerly awaited in Adolescence, and one that is especially earned through the cumulative weight of Barantini’s long, restrained takes, pushing a quiet form of insistence – not only that we bear witness to this teenager’s shattering crime, but to the raw, fragmented, and unresolved mess left behind.

*Emotional catharsis as Eddie finally reveals his vulnerability in the closing minutes of Adolescence, returning to Jamie’s room where it all began.*

Adolescence is currently streaming on Netflix.

Rebel Ridge (2024)

Jeremy Saulnier | 2hr 11min

When Marine Corps veteran Terry returns to the Louisiana police station where the $36,000 intended for his cousin’s bail has been confiscated, Chief Sandy Burnne and his colleagues are not prepared for the hell about to be unleashed on them. Jeremy Saulnier’s narrative has barely raised the heat past a gentle simmer up until now, matching Aaron Pierre’s cool performance with an equally composed pacing, though it is only matter of time before that patience wears thin. The police officers’ assumption that he lacks combat experience simply because he never served overseas during his military career is a dire mistake. Like so many action heroes of cinema history, Terry proves himself more than capable, using his unique set of skills and tactical wits to take down an entire squad.

Still, vengeance does not arrive through bloody carnage for this veteran. Violence is merely a non-lethal means to an ends, and so despite its proliferation in Rebel Ridge, the total fatalities remain remarkably low. Terry never killed a man during his service, and he is not going to start a John Wick-style rampage now, mowing down leagues of enemies before reaching a final boss. Institutional corruption must be dealt with at its source, and through his unlikely alliance with law student Summer, he begins to embrace a new fight for justice.

Of course, this is all purely tactical for Terry. Right from the opening scene when he is rammed off his bicycle by officers Marston and Lann, it is clear his identity as a Black man factors deeply into his careful interactions with the police. He is not going to pick any fights that he knows he is going to lose, and he is certainly not going to aggravate anyone looking for an excuse to detain or shoot him. In response to their extreme brutality, he responds with the least amount of force necessary, ironically demonstrating the ideal behaviour they should be modelling. Where Saulnier’s 2015 film Green Room veers far more heavily into gore and horror, Rebel Ridge makes for a far more sobering thriller, understanding the nuanced stakes that lie in this conflict beyond life and death.

Unfortunately, the dedication to murky, ambient lighting which gave Green Room such a distinctive visual character is largely absent here, leaving Rebel Ridge struggling to aesthetically set itself apart from the fray of modern action movies. At least beyond the remarkable fight choreography creatively tailored to Terry’s no-killing principle, Saulnier delivers a small handful of locations that play to his stylistic strengths, illuminating the police evidence room with a subtle blue wash and later piercing the darkness of the courtroom basement with green and orange light sources. Scenes like these do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to imbuing the setting with a sense of peril, hinting at the insidious exploitation lurking beneath the police force’s veneer of law-abiding respectability.

After all, the prejudice that Terry experiences is not an isolated incident. What starts as a quest to free his cousin inevitably gets wrapped up in a much larger conspiracy at play, raising suspicions when an unidentified whistleblower points Summer towards a strange anomaly in police records – over the past two years, many people who committed misdemeanours were held in jail for exactly 90 days before being released. The exposition which peels back the mystery here drags a little, though the payoff in Terry’s final confrontation with Burnne and his lackeys is certainly worth it, ultimately revealing where individual loyalties truly lie. Our veteran hero only may be alive due to his combat expertise, though physical conflict alone is never going to heal a broken system. Patience, discernment, and cunning are virtues embodied in his pursuit of justice, and superbly carried through in Saulnier’s tense, brooding storytelling.

Rebel Ridge is currently streaming on Netflix.

Ripley (2024)

Steven Zaillian | 8 episodes (44 – 76 minutes)

When spoiled heir Dickie Greenleaf catches Tom Ripley trying on his expensive clothing, the assumption that his new friend might be gay is only half-correct. Queer readings of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley are nothing new, and Steven Zaillian is not ignorant to them in his television adaptation, though the icy contempt and admiration that are wrapped up in Tom’s repression also paint a far more complex image of class envy. Tom does not wish to be with Dickie, but to become him, and the depths to which he is willing to sink in this mission reveal a moral depravity only matched by his patience, diligence, and cunning.

Of all the qualities that vex Tom about Dickie, it is his complete lack of personal merit that is most maddening, deeming him unworthy of the lavish lifestyle funded by his wealthy father. While Dickie admires the cubism of Picasso and even proudly owns his artworks, his attempts at recreating that distinctive, abstract style fall short, just as his girlfriend Marge displays little talent in her writing and his friend Freddie is no great playwright. Money might buy the bourgeoisie false praise, yet no amount of riches can endow upon them the ingenious intuition that history’s greatest artists naturally possess, and which Tom nefariously manipulates to earn what he views as his unassailable right.

*Tom arrives in Dickie and Marge’s life as a looming shadow, ominously cast over their bodies relaxing on the beach.*

*Few television series in history look like this – Zaillian draws on the expertise of cinematographer Robert Elswit to capture these magnificent visuals, making for some of their best work.*

It takes the sharp, opportunistic mind of a con artist to conduct a scam as multifaceted as that which Tom executes here, murdering and stealing Dickie’s identity while carefully navigating the ensuing police investigations. Though Tom adopts his victim’s appreciation of Picasso for this ploy, Zaillian also introduces another historic painter as an even greater subject of fascination in Ripley. The spiritual affinity that Tom feels for Baroque artist Caravaggio is deepened in the parallels between their stories, both being men who commit murder, go on the run, and express a transgressive attraction towards men. Though living three centuries apart, these highly intelligent outcasts are mirrors of each other – one being an artist with a criminal background, and the other a criminal with a fondness for art.

*A graphic match cut deftly bridges historical time periods, bringing Tom and Caravaggio’s formal connection to a head in the final episode.*

*Gothic expressionism in the Caravaggio flashback, revealing the murder which has tainted his name.*

*Caravaggio’s artworks are strewn throughout Ripley, most notably drawing Tom to the San Luigi dei Francesi cathedral where his three St. Matthew paintings are on display.*

At the root of this comparison though, perhaps Tom’s appreciation may simply stem from the aesthetic and formal qualities of Caravaggio’s paintings, portraying biblical struggles with an intense, dramatic realism that was considered groundbreaking in Italy’s late Renaissance. When Tom gazes upon three companion pieces depicting St. Matthew at the grandiose San Luigi dei Francesi cathedral in Rome, they seem to come alive with the sounds of distant, tortured screaming, blurring the thin boundary between art and observer. With this in mind, Zaillian’s primary inspiration behind Ripley also comes into focus, skilfully weaving light and shadow through his introspective staging of an epic moral battle as Caravaggio did four hundred years ago.

Though the rise of cinematic television in recent years has seen film directors take their eye for photography to the small screen, one can hardly call Zaillian an auteur. This is not to take away from his impressive writing credits such as Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York, and The Irishman, but the spectacular command of visual storytelling in Ripley is rare to behold from a filmmaker whose directing has often been the least notable parts of his career.

*An Antonioni approach to photographing Italian architecture, using wide angle lenses to frame these shots that raise structures far above the tiny people below.*

*Immaculate framing and lighting in the canals of Venice, trapping Ripley in a labyrinth built upon his greatest fear – water.*

*Tom’s wandering through labyrinthine Italian cities offers both beautiful mise-en-scène and excellent visual storytelling, applying a photographer’s eye to the detail of each shot.*

Robert Elswit’s high-contrast, monochrome cinematography of course plays in an integral role here, rivalling his work on Paul Thomas Anderson’s films with superb chiaroscuro lighting and a strong depth of field that basks in Italy’s historic architecture. Elswit and Zaillian’s mise-en-scène earn a comparison to Michelangelo Antonioni’s tremendous use of manmade structures here, aptly using the negative space of vast walls to impede on his characters, while detailing the intricate, uneven textures of their surroundings with the keen eye of a photographer. The attention paid to this weathered stonework tells the story of a nation whose past is built upon grand ambition, yet which has eroded over many centuries, tarnishing surfaces with discoloured stains and exposing the rough bedrock beneath worn exteriors.

*Lichen-covered brick walls fill in the negative space of these shots with visual tactility, giving each location its own distinct character.*

*Visual majesty in the cathedrals that Ripley ventures through, captured with astounding symmetry in this high angle.*

*History is baked into the discoloured stains and weathered stonework of Italian architecture, dominating these compositions that push Tom to the edge of the frame.*

Conversely, the interiors of the villas, palazzi, and hotels where Tom often takes up residence couldn’t be more luxurious, revelling in the fine Baroque furniture and decorative wallpaper that only an aristocrat could afford. The camera takes a largely detached perspective in its static wide shots, though when it does move it is usually in short panning and tracking motions, following him through gorgeous sets tainted by his corrosive moral darkness.

*Baroque interiors designed with luxurious attention to detail, reflecting the darkness that Tom carries with him to each hotel and villa.*

*Divine judgement in the unblinking gaze of these historic sculptures, following Tom all through Italy.*

In effect, Ripley crafts a labyrinth out of its environments, beginning in the grimy, cramped apartment buildings of New York City and winding through the bright streets and alleys of Italy. Zaillian’s recurring shots of stairways often evoke Vertigo in their dizzying high and low angles, with even the flash-forward that opens the series hinting at the gloomy descent to come as Tom drags Freddie’s body down a flight of steps. Elsewhere, narrow frames confine characters to tiny rectangles, while those religious sculptures clinging to buildings around Italy direct their unblinking gazes towards Tom, casting divine judgement upon his actions.

*Tom emerges from the cramped apartments in New York City – a cesspool of grime and darkness before he heads to the bright, sunny coast of Italy.*

*Zaillian’s stairway motif arrives as a flash-forward in the very first shot of the series, which returns in its full context four episodes later.*

*Dizzying high and low angles of stairway litter this series, forming spirals out of rectangles, hexagons, and arches.*

*Distant doorways and windows place Dickie and Marge under an intense, microscopic lens from Tom’s voyeuristic perspective.*

*Precision in Zaillian’s framing, trapping Tom in confining boxes.*

As oppressive as these tight spaces may be, they are where Tom is most in control, though Zaillian is also sure to emphasise that the opposite is equally true. The only place to hide when surrounded by vast, open expanses of ocean is within the darkness that lies below, and Tom’s phobia is made palpable in a visual motif that plunges the camera down into that suffocating abyss. This shot is present in nearly every episode of Ripley, haunting him like a persistent nightmare, though Zaillian broadens its formal symbolism too as Tom seeks to wield his greatest fear as a weapon against others.

*The dominant aesthetic of static shots is broken up by this sinking camera motif, appearing in most episodes as a persistent nightmare of drowning.*

*The dark, churning water beckons Tom as he sails between destinations, threatening to pull him into the abyss.*

Most crucially, Tom’s murder of Dickie upon a small boat in the middle of the ocean marks a tipping point for the con artist, seeing him graduate to an even more malicious felony. Zaillian conducts this sequence with taut suspense, entirely dropping out dialogue from the moment Tom delivers the killing blow so that we may sit with his discomforting attempts to sink the body, steal Dickie’s coveted possessions, and burn the boat. From below the surface, the camera often positions us gazing up at the boat’s silhouetted underside with an unsettling calmness. Equally though, the sea is also a force of unpredictable chaos, threatening to drag Tom into its depths when his foot gets caught in the anchor rope and knocking him unconscious with the out-of-control dinghy.

*Zaillian’s execution of Dickie’s murder is cold, calculated, and passionless, the entire sequence unfolding over 25 patient minutes.*

*Daunting camera placement from deep within the ocean, calling upon Tom’s phobia at the peak of his brutality.*

Even when Tom manages to make it out alive, his continued efforts to cover his tracks bear resemblance to Norman Bates cleaning up after his mother’s murder in Psycho, deriving suspense from his systematic procedures of self-preservation across 25 nerve-wracking minutes. Within a two-hour film, a scene this long might otherwise be the centrepiece of the entire story, yet in this series it is simply one of several extended sequences that unfolds with measured, focused resolve.

Unlike most commercial television, there are no dragged-out plot threads or over-reliance on dialogue to push the narrative forward either. As such, Zaillian recognises the unique qualities of this serial format in a manner that only a handful of filmmakers have truly capitalised on before – Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage comes to mind, or more recently Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad. By structuring Patricia Highsmith’s story around roughly hour-long episodes, each scene unfolds with a patient attention to detail, unencumbered by the constraints of limited run times while maintaining a meticulous narrative economy.

Zaillian borrows this use of colour from Schindler’s List – a film he wrote – leaving behind evidence of murder in these red, bloody paw print, and breaking through Elswit’s severe, black-and-white photography.

*Exposition is brought alive as letters are read out directly to the camera.*

Specifically crucial to the development of Ripley’s overarching form are Zaillian’s recurring symbols, woven with sly purpose into Tom’s characterisation. The refrigerator that Dickie purchases in the second episode is a point of contention for Tom, representing a despicably domestic life of stagnation, while the precious ring he steals is proudly worn as an icon of status. After Freddie starts investigating his mysterious disappearance though, the glass ashtray which Tom viciously beats him to death with becomes the most wickedly amusing motif of the lot, laying the dramatic irony on thick when the police inspector visits the following morning and taps his cigarette into it. Later in Venice, Tom even goes out of his way to purchase an identical ash tray for their final meeting, for no other reason than to gloat in his deception.

*Tom eyes Dickie’s ring off early, and from there it becomes a fixation for him, representing the status he seeks to claim for himself.*

*An unassuming ash tray becomes the murder weapon Tom wields against Freddie, and continues to appear in these close-ups with sharp dramatic irony.*

This arrogant stunt speaks acutely to Andrew Scott’s sinister interpretation of Tom Ripley, especially when comparing him against previous versions performed by Alain Delon and Matt Damon. Scott is by far the oldest of three at the time of playing the role, and although this stretches credulity when the character’s relative youth comes into question, it does apply a new lens to Tom as a more experienced, jaded con artist. He does not possess the affable charisma of Delon or Damon, but he delivers each line with calculated discernment, understanding how a specific inflection or choice of word might turn a conversation in his favour. He realises that he does not need others to like him, but to merely give him the benefit of the doubt, allowing enough time to review the situation and recalibrate his web of false identities. After all, how could anyone trust those onyx, shark-like eyes that patiently scrutinise his prey when they aren’t projecting outright malice?

*Andrew Scott’s take on Tom Ripley is far from Alain Delon’s and Matt Damon’s, turning in charisma for sinister, calculating discernment.*

Scott’s casting makes even more sense when considered within the broader context of Zaillian’s adaptation, leaning into the introspective nature of Tom’s nefarious schemes rather than their sensational thrills. The question of what exactly constitutes a fraud is woven carefully through each of Ripley’s characters, mostly centring around Dickie’s class entitlement and Tom’s identity theft, though even manifesting in the police inspector’s passing lies about his wife’s hometown. The rest of society wears false masks to get ahead, Tom reasons, so why shouldn’t he join in the game?

It is no coincidence that the disguise he wears when pretending to be the ‘real’ Tom Ripley so closely resembles the representation of Caravaggio that we meet in the final episode. If anything, this is the truest version of Tom that he has played thus far, and Zaillian’s magnificent conclusion brings that comparison full circle with a dextrous montage of mirrored movements and graphic match cuts. Our protagonist is not some demon born to wreak havoc on the world, but rather a man who has always existed throughout history, seeking to climb the ladder of opportunity with a sharpened, creative impulse and moral disregard. As Ripley so thoroughly demonstrates in studying the mind of this genius, there may be no profession that better captures humanity’s enormous potential than an artist, and none that sinks any lower than a charlatan.

Zaillian sticks the landing with this tremendous montage of match cuts between Tom and Caravaggio, their weapons, and their victims, clearly inspired by The Usual Suspects while integrating his own sinister flair.

*Tom’s disguise as the ‘real’ Tom Ripley bears striking resemblance to Caravaggio, authenticating the connection between artist and criminal.*

Ripley is currently streaming on Netflix.