Sean Wang’s deeply personal story is, in his words, a “thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you” to his family and friends of his 13 year old self. This is a picture perfect mid-aughts teenage coming-of-age movie, with Asian American cultural touchstones and incredibly painstaking period detail from the technology (AIM, MySpace, YouTube, and texting on dumbphones) to the dialogue.
Didi centers on Chris Wang (whose mom calls him didi – which means little brother in Mandarin, and friends call him wang wang), a Taiwanese-American middle schooler growing up in Fremont in his last summer before high school. He spends his days skating, making home videos, goofing off, chatting on AIM, taking test prep classes, and fighting with his older sister. The film is semi-autobiographical not only for director Sean Wang but for so many of Asian-American millennials today, with the ability to transport the viewer back to nostalgiatown, with the sounds of AIM chats (SmarterChild was ChatGPT 1.0 to us) and MySpace songs and childhood memories that seep through your acne-filled pores.
Didi won the Audience Award this year at Sundance, powered by authentic child performances and anchored by the gravitas of Joan Chen, this immensely nostalgic feature directorial debut combines the awkward honesty of Eighth Grade, interpersonal dynamics of Are You There God, it’s Me, Margaret, the timeless accessibility of Stand by Me, and the raw authenticity of Minding the Gap. It essentially doubles as a horror movie, filled with loneliness and cringe-inducing desperation to fit in and look cool or to flirt and impress girls. Most of these moments aren’t cinematic and aren’t some huge teen comedy embarrassment but are just the result of Chris lying or being silent as you, with years of wisdom, beg him to act otherwise. Izaac Wang turns in one of the most understated and authentic performances of the year. One takeaway should be to just always use age-appropriate actors for teenage roles – why is that so hard in Hollywood?
The film is also a love story, a friendship movie, a self-discovery tale – everything you could want (or remember wanting) in a coming-of-age story. Wang gets everything right, from the big parts to the little details like the transience of youth and how willing one is to just quickly delete core parts of your life so unconscionably at a moment’s notice, or the prudishness around sex but the comfort of using dirty language that rings so true for teenage boys that age. The number of times I’d heard “you’re pretty cute for an Asian” and sibling fighting really hit home.
Amidst the blender-mix of painful emotions immature laughs is that intense relatability. If Snack Shack is the idealized cool adolescence, then Didi is the brutally honest (but never judgmental) view of what things really look like as an early teen. The film isn’t perfect, but it has that rough texture of real life, while maintaining the lightness and deftness of touch that keeps it relatable and memorable. It also reminds you to be grateful that you aren’t a teenager anymore and thankful that Google and Youtube exist to teach you how to kiss a girl or make a video.
Now streaming on Peacock.
