Contrarian Culture Club Recommendations
What to watch to keep you engaged and/or distracted this weekend: featuring Adolescence and Every Little Thing
Are you looking for something to amuse, inspire, enlighten, or maybe just distract you from… well, everything? Each week, The Contrarian will share our culture picks—the best things to watch, read, listen to, follow, or go see right now.
Adolescence, a four-part series now streaming on Netflix, opens early in the morning on a residential street somewhere in the north of England. Two police officers make chit-chat in their car before springing into action. Decked out in tactical gear and carrying guns, they raid an average-looking home and arrest Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), a thirteen-year-old boy who is so terrified by the sudden intrusion he wets himself. But it turns out that Jamie, who looks even younger than he is, is the main suspect in a horrific murder. The series follows Jamie, his family, including his loving parents Eddie (Stephen Graham) and Manda (Christine Tremarco), and law enforcement as they reel from the allegations—and make harrowing discoveries about the social media forces shaping the young people in their community.
Jack Thorne, who wrote and created Adolescence with Graham, has aptly described it as “a why-done-it, rather than a whodunit” and said he hopes to screen it in Parliament because the problem of angry young men becoming radicalized online “is only going to get worse.”
Anchored by Cooper’s chilling turn as Jamie and Graham’s heartbreaking performance as a decent man, unsure how to be the father his son needs, Adolescence is both a creative and technical feat: each episode is filmed in what appears to be a single, continuous shot, immersing the viewer in real-time in the lives of the Millers at major emotional turning points. Released this week, it’s currently the No. 1 series on Netflix in the US and the UK—a sign, perhaps, of how urgently relevant the subject matter is on both sides of the pond.
If you need something to cleanse your mental palate and restore your faith in humanity after watching Adolescence—and you probably will—I recommend the documentary Every Little Thing, currently in limited theatrical release. Directed by Sally Aitken, the ostensible subject of the film is Terry Masear, an author and wildlife volunteer who runs a bustling hummingbird rescue organization in Los Angeles. But what the film is really about is compassion, the tender care and attention required to help a tiny, injured creature weighing less than a marshmallow learn how to fly again. Aitken’s camera follows Masear as she goes about her day, fielding dozens of calls from “finders” about hummingbirds in crisis all over LA, and rehabbing the creatures out of her home, gently washing their feathers with Q-tips and feeding them sugar water through tiny syringes. Along the way, we gradually learn more about Masear and the loss and trauma that has shaped her. We come to care deeply about the hummingbirds in her care, each of whom emerges with a name, distinct personality and narrative arc of its own. (We also get to see them up close in flight, thanks to Ann Johnson Prum’s stunning high-speed cinematography.)
By the end of the 90-minute film, you will likely share Masear’s admiration for these magical birds, who are so strong they can flap their wings more than 50 times a second yet are so delicate their bones turn to dust within days of dying. “How can something fly vertical, sideways, backward and upside down and not trigger those ideas, those feelings in people?” she says. “There’s nothing else like them.”
Contrarians, please leave any recommendations for the community in the comments!
I was fortunate while living in L.A. to rescue a hummingbird fledgling that had fallen from its nest. The mother chirped constantly over the weeks we ministered to her baby—we would bring down nectar multiple times a day, and on the advice of a local rescue, made sure the babe was free of mites. It was a joyful day when the baby was able to rejoin their mum back in the nest.
“Every Living Thing” is a compassionate and wonderful film. Do not miss it!