American novelist Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” In a similar fashion, writer/director Sean Wang saw in Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me a chance to reimagine a story about a group of teenagers on a summer adventure featuring actors who look more like him and the kids he ran around with during his own lazy, hazy, crazy days of adolescent glee. Wang had never seen a movie like that, so he used Dìdi, his directorial debut, to explore his own coming-of-age in Fremont, California.
Set in the burgeoning internet craze of the early aughts, Chris Wang (played with wonderful vulnerability by Izaac Wang), a young, impressionable Taiwanese-American boy known as “Wang Wang” to his friends and “Dìdi” to his family, finds himself on the cusp of high school while in the midst of an identity crisis. Like so many of us in our early years, Chris tries on personalities like he’s swapping out suits, testing facets of his character according to whichever clique he’s coalescing with at the moment, in the hope that one day, one might stick.
Opening literally with a boom, the first sequence in Dìdi shows a VHS recording of Chris and his friends Fahad (Raul Dial) and Soup (Aaron Chang) blowing up a mailbox and running away, shouting and laughing as their angry neighbor follows in hot pursuit. The gang hangs out pretty much every day, both in person and online, sarcastically teasing each other about girls on AIM, uploading videos to YouTube, and punching number keys multiple times on their flip phones to send texts with old-school emojis.
At home, Chris fights at the dinner table with his sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) while his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen) struggles to temper their feud. All the while, Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua), Chris’s grandmother, shovels food onto his plate and insists that her growing boy is not being raised properly by Chungsing while Chris’s father is absent. The trickling down of generational trauma is highlighted while also reminding us (thanks to Joan Chen’s perfectly delicate performance) that Chungsing is a mother who, at heart, still seeks her own parental validation.
When Chris and his crew attend a local, suburban pool party, a chance encounter gives Chris the momentum to mingle with his crush Madi (Mahaela Park). Hanging out while Madi and her friend make silly videos, Chris faces the horrifying prospect of finding himself out of his depth, fumbling over every word, and seemingly only securing an invitation to Madi’s Facebook page out of pity.
Desperate to belong, Chris grapples with the conditional love of his peers. First he loses a spot in a car ride to a party after he tells an embarrassing story in front of cute girls at mini golf. Then he’s side-eyed during playback of videos he put together for a group of older skater boys he’d charmed by claiming to be a filmmaker. Whenever Chris self-sabotages, he doubles down on his mistakes, blocking a potential love interest when he can’t meet her sexual advances, and playing up his conquests to his buddies under the weight of peer pressure.
After his mother scolds him for embarrassing her by fighting another boy during a tutoring session, his discomfort boils over into rebellious rage, his shame shining brightly as he puts the blame back on her shoulders, his pain visceral and heartbreaking and utterly relatable.
Izaac Wang is wholly endearing as Chris, giving a physical performance that feels grounded in its rigidity. The way he shrinks into himself, sinking deep into his hoodie with sharp shoulders jutting out from his back like needles on a porcupine, suggests a defense mechanism akin to an anti-predator structure. Wang combines a shy demeanor with hopeful eyes as he lurks on Madi’s social media page to find her favorite films. When he messages her to fake an affinity for A Walk to Remember (only to learn that the internet refers to this movie as a “chick flick,” his flashing computer screen blinking over his fading smile), you can’t help but have a soft spot for the kid.
A sterling example of how the internet extrapolates the loneliness of adolescence, Dìdi also serves as a reminder that a generation raised online is more self-aware than inherently selfish.
On the surface, Dìdi is reminiscent of many other standout coming-of-age movies, such as Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, Deniz Gamze Erguven’s Mustang or Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s Little Miss Sunshine. Where Wang’s story differs is in its unabashed portrayal of immigrant families.
Sprinkled with moments that feel personal to those whose parents moved to the States so they could provide opportunities they didn’t have, Dìdi explicates the mountain of pressure placed on kids’ shoulders long before taking their first steps on American soil. When Chungsing uses an umbrella to block the sun during a bright morning walk, Chris and Vivian linger far behind, complaining under their breath that their mother is “so Asian.”
Chris wants to gain cool points with the older skater kids at the park by hiding his Asian heritage and faking apathy toward his studies. Yet it’s when Chungsing compares her son to his classmate Max, who is passing his courses with flying colors, that Chris finally snaps out of his distant demeanor with raw anger and humiliation.
Illustrating a conflicted familial role, Chris, like any other kid his age, desires popularity among his peers, losing himself in the endless void of social-media “likes” and carefully curated profile photos. At the same time, he is acutely aware of his mother dedicating her life to his future, and feels compelled to honor her via academic achievements – even if it provides the dreaded bragging rights she touts to her friends.
Watching Chris take repeated missteps is as comical as it is endearing, with director Wang telling his story in a way that feels universal yet precise. Dìdi may be a movie about an Asian-American boy and children of immigrants, but Chris’s endless summer feels collective. Both a clever commentary on internet culture and the value of setting down one’s phone to spend more time with family, the only real unconditional love there is, Sean Wang’s piercingly authentic debut is one of the best movies of the year, and essential viewing for anyone with a pulse.
