Sensitive and funny, this semi-autobiographical film follows 13-year-old Chris Wang as he grows up in diaspora, flirting through AOL emojis and navigating family life, with beautiful small details that feel painfully realistic and true to life.
The definition of a crowd pleaser. This is a movie that will fill your heart with joy, love, and nostalgia (even if you grew up before Paramore or the early days of Facebook).
Screened as part of 2024
Dìdi 2024
Dìdi (弟弟)
Rising star Sean Wang returns off the back of the success of his Oscar-nominated documentary short, Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (Grandma & Grandma) with his directorial debut Dìdi (also written by Wang). Set in the summer of 2008, Dìdi is firmly set in the noughties milieu of Paramore inflected bedroom walls, flirting over AOL and early YouTube skate videos.
Dìdi tackles the familiar coming-of-age genre with a new twist, through the lens of Taiwanese-American 13-year-old Chris Wang (Izaac Wang), as he navigates friends, crushes, and his first-generation family across one Summer in the sun-soaked Bay Area.
Despite being steeped in early 2000s-era nostalgia, Dìdi doesn’t shy away from the growing pains of early teenagehood as director Sean Wang sensitively captures Chris’s painful social missteps and lies, amongst the joy of his boyish hijinks. Didi sensitively navigates the intersectionality of an Asian American experience, as we watch Chris navigating his familial identity while jostling to find a place in diaspora. Joan Wang plays Chris’s mother in an elegant and touching performance as she tries to connect with her son, while symbolising what Chris wants to leave behind, as the remnants of her own identity as an artist remain a distant dream.
Fully realised and deeply felt, the audience is invited into Chris’s naughty, charming, and sometimes painful world, as he navigates his own emotions, social missteps, and embarrassment. Drenched in soft golden cinematography, interwoven with the aesthetics of low-megapixel cameras of the ’00s, Didi captures both the highs and lows of early teen life.
Winner of the Sundance US Dramatic Audience Award and US Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast, Dìdi will delight and make you groan with embarrassment, much like any bittersweet recollection of early teenagehood. — Nahyeon Lee