Sean Wang’s semi-autobiographical film explores the complexities of teenage life with humor and heart
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Another Sundance Award-winning, American indie, coming-of-age dramedy, Sean Wang’s likable enough, semi-autobiographical “Didi” boasts some fine performances and a protagonist who might be described as the 2,000th iteration of J.D. Salinger’s anti-hero Holden Caulfield of the 1951 novel “The Catcher in the Rye.” Starring as the writer-director’s 13-year-old stand-in, who urinates in his older sister’s skin lotion bottle and is addressed as both Wang Wang and Chris, is a charismatic Izaac Wang (“Raya and the Last Dragon”), whose performance raises this familiar subject above the ordinary.
An expansion of writer-director Wang’s Academy Award-nominated 2023 short film “Nai Nai & Wai Po,” also with Wang’s grandmother Zhang Li Hua as the aged grandmother, “Didi” adds award-winning actor Joan Chen (“Xiu-Xiu: The Sent Down Girl,” “The Last Emperor”) to the mix as the protagonist’s frustrated painter mother Chungsing. This beautiful, put-upon woman has raised her two children, older daughter Vivian (Shirley Chen) included, alone in the U.S. while her husband works and lives in Taiwan. Chungsing also cares for her husband’s failing, temperamental mother, Nai Nai (Hua).
The action begins in 2009 in the Bay Area city of Fremont, California (Wang’s hometown), with Vivian set to leave for college, while Chris’s college prospects look dim since, as his sister points out, he might not get through high school. Please ignore the “Friends”-like theme song over the opening scenes.
Vivian and Chris have an angry, shouting kind of relationship, often set aflame when Chris borrows his sister’s T-shirts and hoodies. Throughout the film, we see a lot of computer screens. I know these are an integral part of young people’s lives (and some old people’s, too). But a picture of a computer screen is almost the opposite of cinema. Chris spends a lot of time altering the information about him on his social media platforms to “update” his image and appear more mature. He does this because he suddenly finds an attractive schoolmate named Madi (an appealing Mahaela Park), who, to his surprise, seems responsive to his attempts to hang out with her and (at least) become friends.
Chris, who has an interest in skateboards and film, has a friend whose mother has cancer, a subject that causes considerable confusion since his friends use sex with someone’s mother as a common insult. We also encounter some humor that reflects the era’s sensibilities, including jokes that pertain to gay themes. This is, after all, the prime of Judd Apatow movies. Accidentally, Chris meets a group of older skateboarders with genuine skills who ask him to film their street sessions. Chris Googles “filming skateboarders” immediately, which is exactly what I would have done. At about the same time, Chris meets Madi for real at a small party, and they hit it off. He reads her online profile and tells her that (like her) one of his favorite films is the Keanu Reeves weepie “A Walk in the Clouds.” Chungsing addresses Chris fondly by his nickname, Didi, when they aren’t screaming at each other. Prior to a humiliating meeting with Madi, Chris finds a site called “How to Kiss like a Pro” online. Chris’s psyche has odd gaps. Madi discovers that he has somehow not seen “Star Wars” or “E.T.” We must endure a lamentable, misguided sequence about a dying, tormented squirrel. Nai Nai isn’t good for much, although Wang shows an ironing board in her bedroom. Clearly, she makes herself an useful as she can. We are not quite sure why Chris does not delete a shot of the skateboarders’ confrontation with a security guard. A bit of business concerning a swallowed marijuana roach also strikes an off note. To no one’s surprise, “Didi” is dedicated “To Mom.”
‘Didi’
Rating: R for language throughout, sexual material, and drug and alcohol use—all involving teens.
Cast: Izaac Wang, Jon Chen, Shirley Chen.
Director/writer: Sean Wang
Running time: 93 minutes
Where to watch: In Boston theaters Aug. 2
Grade: B
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