Didi
In 2008 Fremont, California, during the summer before he starts high school, thirteen year-old Chris Wang (Izaac Wang, "Good Boys") and his college bound sister Vivian’s (Shirley Chen, "Quiz Lady") fights are so bad they make him want to escape the house and cause his Nai Nai ("Nai Nai & Wài Pó's" Zhang Li Hua) to chastise his mother (Joan Chen, TV's 'Twin Peaks'), her daughter-in-law, for not controlling the household while her son supports them from Taiwan. Best friend Fahad (Raul Dial) and the interest of a pretty girl, Madi (Mahaela Park), suggest the promising start of a new chapter, but the young man known as Wang Wang by his friends makes one social blunder after another, leading him back to the mom who calls him “Dìdi.”
Laura's Review: B
I wasn’t a huge fan of writer/director Sean Wang 2024 Oscar nominated documentary short "Nai Nai & Wài Pó,” which chronicled the lives of his grandmother, who reprises that role fictionally here, and her sister-in-law, feeling that his presence in the film compromised its authenticity. Ironically, his first fictional feature, “Dìdi,” feels a lot more genuine, steeped in the semi-autobiographical and complex issues of an adolescent son of Taiwanese immigrants in an all female household. Young Izaac Wang shoulders the film perfectly with his empathetic performance of a kid who isn’t always likable with a deck already stacked against him.
At first Wang Wang seems happy hanging with Fahad and Soup (Aaron Chang) and noticing and being noticed by Madi at a party at Hardeep’s (Tarnvir Kamboj) house, but the kid will make himself persona non grata after embarrassing his friends by relating an awful tale about how they treated a dead squirrel (voice of Spike Jonze) to one of their female friends, a real rookie mistake. While he and Madi had seemed a promising pairing (even after she told him he ‘was cute for an Asian’), when she initiates a sexually suggestive game of ‘Are you nervous?’ he cannot help but display that he is. Worse, when she contacts him over Facebook (the film is almost a museum of old technology interfaces) to ask if he’s upset, he types in an absolutely perfect answer, admitting his embarrassment, only to delete it and block her.
Frustrated, Dìdi arrives home to another harangue from Vivian and reacts so angrily in his misery it gives her pause. But when he heads out in one of her hoodies (the cause of most of their fights), he has the good fortune to run into skateboarders Donovan (Chiron Cillia Denk), Cory (Sunil Maurillo) and Nugget (Montay Boseman) and, fancying himself a videographer, is accepted by the older boys to document their exploits. They’ll lead him into booze and drugs he’s not ready to handle, a situation which will turn Vivian into a more supportive ally, but when they arrive at his home to view all the videos he’s been shooting, his desperation will bring him to his lowest point as he pushes away the one person who stands by him no matter what, embarrassed by his own heritage.
Wang interweaves Dìdi’s social and family life with just the right balance, the young teen bouncing from a bad situation in one to an equivalent in the other. The détente eventually arrived at between Dìdi and his sister exhibits a new maturity in Vivian, the ability to get out of her own head, just as she’s about to enter a bigger world. Nai Nai represents the old ways and is a bit of a cliché here, but as mom Chungsing Joan Chen is anything but, a supportive mom whose own dreams of being an artist have been waylaid by family demands (she’s contrasted with a typical Tiger mom during a cringe worthy mother and son lunch). Chen is the real heart of the film, soft spoken and loving, her disappointment on rejection from an art show suffered in silence and alone. That Dìdi’s downward spiral sends him back into his mother’s arms, all forgiven, brings much needed joy back into both lives.
Wang shakes things up visually (cinematography by "Nai Nai & Wài Pó’s" Sam Davis) with such gambits as using Chris’s point of view as he shoots his new skateboarding buddies, his imagined abilities far exceeding reality; with screens exhibiting period social media apps; YouTube videos of such things as ‘how to shoot skating’ and a kissing tutorial featuring Stephanie Hsu and an animated talking squirrel and dead fish on a plate. The film features a hip hop soundtrack one would expect a 13 year-old boy enamored of skateboarding to immerse himself in.
Wang wisely goes beyond Dìdi’s embrace of his mom, ending as he navigates the hallways of a new high school filled with old friends and at least one bridge that may not be irreparably burnt.
Focus Features opens "Dìdi" in select theaters on 7/26/24, expanding on 8/2/24.
