Oscar nominee Sean Wang (Best Documentary Short Film, Nai Nai & Wài Pó) originally wrote Didi as a love letter to his friends, pulling memories from his childhood as inspiration for his feature film directorial debut. But along the way, Wang discovered Didi isn’t just a love letter for his friends, it’s also for his family, his hometown, and for anyone who feels they don’t belong.
Izaac Wang leads the cast as Chris Wang, also known as Wang-Wang to his friends and Didi to his mom Chungsing (Joan Chen), grandmother Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua, Sean Wang’s grandmother), and sister Vivian (Shirley Chen). Chris is 13 and preparing to enter the alien world of high school. Is he ready? No. Is anyone?
Sean Wang’s coming-of-age dramedy is set in 2008, which means Chris’s transformative summer comes at a time when Myspace is still a thing. Facebook and DM’ing are busy attempting to push Myspace to the curb, and YouTube has become the go-to place to post videos. As a budding filmmaker, it’s the latter outlet that is Chris’s preferred online destination.
When he’s not online, Chris instigates fights with his sister, who’s about to leave for college at UC San Diego. He also spends time hanging with his much more popular best friends Soup (Aaron Chang) and Fahad (Raul Dial), blowing up mailboxes, creating a little havoc, and trying to act cool around girls. But, basically, he feels like he’s just hanging onto the world by his fingernails.
Life sucks when you’re 13 and your friends are maturing and just days away from moving on without you. A partnership with older skaters briefly allows him a glimpse of the world from a higher rung on the social status ladder. Unfortunately, he overestimates what he can bring to the group and winds up in a worse place than when he met them.
He overestimates his ability to interact one-on-one with a cute classmate as well. Chris makes a horrible mistake during a first date, and it’s enough to send him on a downward spiral. He has no idea how to handle a girl who’s interested in him and overreacts in the worst possible way.
For Chris, being Taiwanese-American also affects his place in the world, even though Fremont, CA is racially diverse. All of this is just too much and he takes out his frustration and anger on his incredibly patient and loving mom, who’s taking care of the family – including the grandmother – all on her own. Chungsing is a talented artist, but Chris ignores her attempts to engage him in conversations about her paintings. Yet when Chris is at his lowest, when he truly feels alone in the world, it’s his mother who proves to be his anchor and helps him understand this phase of his life will pass and that he’s stronger than he gives himself credit for.
Filmmaker Sean Wang has an incredible ear for dialogue. Didi’s script allows us to recognize aspects of Chris’s experiences in ourselves, and every line Wang’s written strikes its intended target. By focusing on a story that is deeply personal to him, Wang has transformed this expression of the difficulties and fear of being an outsider into something that is universally relatable.
The best coming-of-age stories are ones filled with flawed characters simply attempting not to succumb to the pressures – real or imagined – of peers and the world at large. With its talented ensemble, led by Izaac Wang, Didi stands out as one of the finest recent examples of the genre.
GRADE: A-
Running Time: 94 minutes
Cast: Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Chang Li Hua, Shirley chen, Raul Dial, Aaron Chang, Mahaela Park, Chiron Denk, Sunil Maurillo, Montay Boseman
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Didi screened as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Ensemble.
