Welcome to the charming and serene town of … Fremont, California! Not familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area suburb? It’s the setting of Academy Award-nominated Sean Wang’s debut feature film, “Dìdi (弟弟).” Born and raised in Fremont himself, the writer and director takes on a familiar subject: boyhood.
“Dìdi (弟弟),” which is Chinese for younger brother, follows a 13-year-old Chris Wang (played by Izaac Wang) over a summer with friends, crushes, and family. Taking home the Special Jury and Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in January this year, Sean pitches the movie as a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age film along the lines of “Stand By Me,” but featuring the kids that he grew up with.
“The story, to me at least, was really how this kid deals with all these different versions of shame,” Sean told the audience at a screening hosted by the Center for Asian American Media. “That felt right. Whether it’s personal shame, cultural shame, societal shame, and then the different ways that that shame manifests in different emotions and keeps him from accepting different forms of love, whether it’s love from his mom or his family or himself, like self-love.”
Tapping into Nostalgia
There are tons of cringe-worthy moments throughout the film that bring a special mix of humor and reality. The film opens with Chris and his friends running away from a mailbox they just blew up and laughing hysterically while catching the whole scene on camera. But beyond gags, “Dìdi (弟弟)” is about relationships. Chris’ family is Taiwanese — like Sean’s — and consists of his mother, his sister, and his paternal grandmother, who is actually played by Sean’s actual grandmother. The father figure, working abroad, is absent throughout the film, setting up a matriarchy in the house that forms the basis of the film’s plot.
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