It’s tempting for the technical story behind “Adolescence” to overshadow the themes at the center of the Netflix original. After all, this is a series composed of four hourlong one-shot episodes. But even though it was director Philip Barantini’s expertise with the oner that sparked the conversation that would lead to “Adolescence,” this directorial triumph was only utilized to highlight the tense story at the center of this limited series.

“Whenever I was reading the script, I had to be able to visualize that we were able to do this one take and it wasn’t going to be a gimmick,” Barantini told TheWrap.