Movie info via Sundance:
In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
In his striking directorial debut, Sean Wang takes us on a kinetic ride through the ups and downs of adolescence, mining personal experience to share a joyful, funny, and deeply affecting ode to first-generation teenagers navigating the beauty and pain of cultural heritage in a sea of conformity. Wang confidently steers us through the freewheeling early days of social media, where AIM emoticons and MySpace rankings carry the weight of heartbreak and friendships forged and broken. Both a moving love letter to immigrant parents and a playful examination of our uncertain paths to adulthood, Dìdi (弟弟) reminds us that growing up and growing into better versions of ourselves are often one and the same.—AS
Review:
Sean Wang’s Didi gives an Asian American perspective on the typical coming of age in America film. Like most of them it’s semi-autobiographical, full of embarasing and defining moments such as an aborted first kiss. What gives it zing is the culture clash, the need for the lead character, Didi (Izaac Wang) to be proud and yet downplay his Taiwanese heritage in order to fit in to the surrounding white culture, one despite all his attempts, he’s still an outsider.
Wang characterization is specific and self-effacing, set in the 2008 where teens were phasing out My Space and converting to Facebook. Didi in Mandarin can mean either little brother or youngest son depending on context and speaker. It’s a term that makes the real named Chris wince when he hears it. He prefers the simple repetition of his family name- Wang Wang. that his dork friends use. Still when he meets new friends and other people he hesitantly asks them to call him Chris. He’s not exactly sure where he wants to fit in culturally and how he really wants them to perceive him.
Didi is at that age where he’s interested in girls, but still does childish stuff. A jackass style stunt with a dead squirrel is one of the more regrettable ones. An awkward flirtation with an older teen Mina (Mahaela Park) doesn’t go well, when his internet search for compatible talk subjects and that he’s really half-white, gets exposed as a lie,
At home he lives with an annoying college age sister (Shirley Chen) , a harpy Mandarin only speaking grandmother (Chang Li Hua who is also director Wang’s real-life grandmother), and a silent, understanding mother (Joan Chen) who aspires to be an artist. Didi’s father is absent, always away on business.
Wang is always trying to put his own spin on teen movie cliches. The house party scene has Didi amazed by people getting drunk, making out. He’s the youngest kid there and it’s both a great and not so great introduction to adult life. Wang has a good directorial instinct that allows the balancing of the comic with the insightful. He allows the audience to see himself in the character.
Didi gets a 3.5/5 or a B+.
It’s streaming as part of Sundance 2024 . The virtual part of the festival runs from January 25-28.
Credits:
- DIRECTOR(S)SEAN WANG
- SCREENWRITERSEAN WANG
- PRODUCERSCARLOS LÓPEZ ESTRADAJOSH PETERSVALERIE BUSHSEAN WANG
- CINEMATOGRAPHERSAM DAVIS
- PRODUCTION DESIGNERHANRUI WANG
- COSTUME DESIGNERBRIANNA MURPHY
- EDITORARIELLE ZAKOWSKI
- COMPOSERGIOSUÈ GRECO
- PRINCIPAL CASTIZAAC WANGJOAN CHENSHIRLEY CHENCHANG LI HUA
- YEAR2023
- CATEGORYFEATURE
- COUNTRYUNITED STATES
- LANGUAGEENGLISH, MANDARIN
- RUN TIME91 MIN
- COMPANYSUNSHINE SACHS
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