New series The dream of youth is… wow! And the red thread around abortion is poignant at the start

Who knows another good series? I’m through it’, is a regular question on social media. The dream of youth could now answer you. This family drama can be seen on NPO 1 from tonight (and can be streamed in its entirety). Metro is absolutely positive about it.

With The dream of youth, a dream also came true for screenwriter Marnie Blik (Ramses, Nobody in the City) and the directors Bram Schouw and Simone van Dusseldorp. What a Dutch top cast they got thrown into their lap. For that reason alone, Metro watched the first episode for the TV section Blik op de Buis. To get straight to the point: it’s great fun, but you have to go through the first episode of this fiction story and then you’ll know: this promises a lot, a lot.

The dream of the youth in more than forty years

In nine episodes of about 50 minutes (as a series enthusiast you can go ahead again) we see the Wander family over a period of more than forty years. Mark Rietman and Annet Malherbe are father Kick and mother Rosalie. Their four children are each played by a younger and a somewhat older actor. What you see in The dream of youth: three generations… and one big family secret that seeps like poison through those different generations.

Hanna van Vliet and Tamar van den Dop play the eldest daughter, Carla. Ko Zandvliet and Peter Paul Muller are eldest son Max. Laura Bakker and Maria Kraakman are daughter Suus together. And Joes Brauers and Gijs Naber are the youngest son, Frans. In The dream of youth, as a viewer you will also be presented with beautiful names such as Alidtcha Binazon, Yannick Jozefzoon, Roeland Fernhout, Chris Peters, Sylvia Poorta and Jacob Derwig from KLEM.

Don’t rush to get a coffee if you’re going to watch The dream of youth, by the way. From the first second you really have to be there, we just give it as a tip. The first episode sometimes ripples on a bit, because as viewers we have to get to know all the characters. That’s not surprising. Several scenes are also immediately touching.

Abortion, you didn’t decide that yourself

Abortion and the right to it (or not) is a common thread at the start. The eldest and rather free-spirited daughter Carla, Hanna van Vliet, becomes pregnant. As a deregistered Catholic who also has a child from a Surinamese boy, she is, so to speak, the greatest shame in Brabant. She does not want to keep her baby and has to appear before an abortion committee that decides on this. Seriously, this is something from only half a century ago, isn’t it? The conclusion of the committee and the reactions that follow are even more poignant.

It turns out to be the prelude to even more history. What will appeal to many with The Dream of Youth is the way in which the zeitgeist is brought from the tumultuous sixties to much later. Not only is there acting, but you also get to experience major events from world history in flashes. Every generation in The dream of youth has obstacles and challenges that are fought and fought for. Like the right to abortion. But also matters of faith, the student revolution in Paris in 1968, the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11. In addition, one of the children (Gijs Naber) is sent to Srebrenica as a blue helmet. He returns with PTSD. Everyone in the family has their own thing, but family ties also appear to be inextricably linked.

The dream of youth: demand the impossible

Metro has not yet found out what all the dreams in The Dream of Youth are exactly. We did see a beautiful hippie party in the Amsterdam Rai in episode 1. And also how a young photographer (Chris Peters) gives son Max a lift and talks about the revolution he saw in Paris. “We are fed up, our generation is going to make it. Demand the impossible.” The same photographer then drags Max (Ko van Zandvliet) to the capital of France to see the student riots with his own eyes.

In an image full of cigarette smoke, this must be a particularly cool series. That narrow-mindedness of religious families as the counterpart of the freedom fighters… argh, you think now. Only the end of the first episode invites you to look further. And that toxic family secret, what could it be? Hopefully, you didn’t reach for that quick cup of coffee we talked about earlier.

Number of cans from 5: 4.5

That can be 5 after a few episodes.

The dream of the youth can be seen on NPO 1 on nine Wednesday evenings at 8.33 pm at KRO-NCRV. You can stream the entire series immediately via NPO Start.