Director: Sean Wang
Writer: Sean Wang
Stars: Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen
Synopsis: A 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy discovers skating, flirting, and the true essence of maternal love beyond his family’s teachings.
There’s not going to be any sugarcoating when it comes to how I write about Sean Wang’s Dìdi. This film basically crystallizes the summer of 2008 in cinematic amber. Those insane home videos made among friends where you feel invincible. Having a drawer full of Livestrong bracelets that became so melted and slimy from heat they became gross to the touch. Messaging friends or your crush with the most ludicrous grammar imaginable. Writing and deleting countless drafts before deciding to go with the option that has the least personality possible. It’s incredibly apparent that this film is mined from the most personal memories of Wang’s childhood. Yet magically, the moments in our lives that feel hyper-specific are often the ones that resonate the most universally. It’s very possible that I hadn’t thought about Touchdown Turnaround by Hellogoodbye since 2008, but the moment it pops up on a character’s MySpace page in the film, memories came flooding back at a rapid rate. Dìdi effortlessly opens the floodgates of memory for its viewer in a way that is so magical, and incredibly representative of the power of cinema. For Wang, it’s clear that making this film was deeply cathartic. For the audience, it’s a laugh-out-loud trip down memory lane with a heart of gold. Most importantly, it captures the pivotal notion that emotional openness is crucial to growing up, and that perhaps the biggest shame of many youths is that they are too afraid to open up emotionally.
Dìdi is so painfully sincere in capturing an age that is anything but. The decisions we made at 13 are completely based on this innate desire to be liked. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be liked by your peers, or even the older kids. It’s only when we begin reshaping our true selves that it becomes a disservice to the true person we’re supposed to be. In the end, it’s all part of that experience of what it means to grow up. We make mistakes, and find ourselves in situations that we were so excited for, only to realize how deeply panicked they make us. We lied to make a Facebook account, we lied about the movies and music we like to impress those we have a crush on, we lied to our peers about being more sexually experienced than we actually were. Is it wrong? Maybe. But it’s all based in this innocent desperation to be accepted as an equal. And Izaac Wang’s performance as Chris Wang paired with Sean Wang’s observant direction is a match made in heaven. We follow Chris’ mouse as he slowly looks over Facebook status’ and AIM messages. We see him overthink just exactly how he’s going to try and win over the heart of his crush, Madi (Macaela Parker). Chris is clearly yearning as much as any 13-year-old does. We’re only able to recognize it after having gone through it and learned from it.
So with that hindsight in mind, Wang described this film as “a thank you and an ‘I’m sorry’” to his friends and family. Dìdi is a film that acutely understands the complex duology that lives in most 13-year-old kids growing up. On the surface, a kid like Chris may show little to no emotional intelligence when interacting with his peers. He’s practically incapable of displaying any emotion, other than laughter when one of his friends disses the other with the most out-of-pocket thing you could imagine saying to another person. Yet deep down, Chris, and all other adolescent kids, are controlled by these inexplicable feelings. It’s a constant struggle on what the proper reaction should be in any given situation, and leave it to the seemingly thoughtless older kids to call Chris on it in a sequence where he yells at his mom for fear of being embarrassed. At that age, it’s so easy to find ourselves completely lost within our heart and mind as we attempt to grapple with the world at large. Self-image at that age came from how others viewed us, and in that moment, it was the only thing that mattered. How unfortunate that 2008 was a time period in which emotional honesty was shackled behind the fear of being made fun of by other friends or class bullies.
For example, out of the blue, Chris receives a message from Madi asking to hang out. We see the message he types on AIM, one that shows his clear excitement. Chris then deletes it with haste, only to send the all too common, “nm u?” that we have all sent at least once in our adolescent lives. When Chris’ mom, an artist, shows him a beautiful painting she made of a moment in time from a trip to the beach long ago, Chris’ first comment after a quick, unenthused glance is how he looks stupid. His only thought is how a friend might use it as something to poke fun at if they came over. It’s an interaction that stings deeply, and most viewers will likely have some similar instance of comparison to their lives. Even in the most reckless of situations, we might have found ourselves rushing in with the hopes of being labeled cool. A bunch of guys wrestling in the park leads to Chris getting a black eye, and it certainly helps Chris’ self-esteem that Madi was there to watch it happen. As somebody who accidentally wound up with a black eye around the same age as Chris, the attention the next day unequivocally made it all the better. It would be crazy to ever reveal how upset it actually made us in the moment, wondering why we ended up with it in the first place. That constant worry of being perceived as cool was always overcome by the knowledge that being too “in touch with your own emotions” was anything but cool. Even so, Dìdi is a film that is incredibly in touch with emotions, even if Chris may feel utterly lost by his own.
We see unbridled anger and fear as his friends take his phone while in the middle of texting Madi. There was simply nothing scarier at the time. We see misunderstood remorse as he calls strangers names thinking it would come across as humorous. There’s a deep uneasiness and fear as we overhear and catch glimpses of an intense familial argument. And in that same vein, there’s a comfort and warm solace when our sibling gets us out of that situation without hesitation. So much of Dìdi captures these emotions perfectly, but when channeled through Chris, those emotions become warped by the time and place with which the story so crucially takes place. These moments in our lives that we look back on with a touch of nostalgia and a lot more cringiness are the moments that may have defined who we have become. But also, they are representative of a time when many of us didn’t know any better. It’s only in hindsight that we’re able to see why we made all the choices we did. Quite frankly, growing up was, is, and always will be, a tough and confusing experience. But sometimes it’s as simple as receiving the slightest of nods from a friend to let us know it will all be okay.
Dìdi celebrated its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section, and is currently seeking distribution.
