April 4, 1968 is the saddest day in the life of Dean Williams. Because that is the day Martin Luther King is assassinated, everyone feels sorry for the twelve-year-old. Especially the white teachers at the high school in Montgomery, Alabama – after all, desegregation there is still a pretty shaky affair. While Dean’s real heartache is that the girl he has a crush on just made out with his best friend, he prefers to keep it to himself.
Aside from being black, Dean isn’t much different from Kevin, who was the main character of The Wonder Years (1988-1993). In this reboot, too, an adult off-narrator sentimentally looks back on an idyllic middle-class suburban youth in the sixties. Because Dean is black, however, his story is a little different, and the confrontation with everyday discrimination flows wonderfully subtly into the nostalgic coming-of-age story.
(Disney+, from 12/28)
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