Early in Dìdi, Chungsing (Joan Chen) tries to get her son, Chris (Izaac Wang), to look at a painting she’s made of their family. Chris, however, is extremely reluctant to turn away from the goofy YouTube video he’s been watching. When he finally does, he’s unmoved by her piece and instead picks a fight about what he describes as her nagging, and what she protests is just “caring.” It’s their relationship in a nutshell, and probably the relationships of lots of adolescent kids and their parents in a nutshell.
But if Chris seems unable or unwilling to see his mother for who she is in the moment, Dìdi, as a semi-autobiographical work by writer-director Sean Wang, feels like an apology come years later. The film is a very solid entry in the annals of coming-of-age films, reminiscent of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade in both its affection for its young characters and its willingness to meet them on their own terms. But its real secret weapon turns out to be the equal empathy it extends toward Chungsing, whose own journey emerges as a moving complement to her son’s.
Dìdi
The Bottom Line
A pair of excellent lead turns anchor a touching feature debut.
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition)
Cast: Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen, Chang Li Hua
Director-screenwriter: Sean Wang
1 hour 31 minutes
Titled after the Mandarin term for “little brother,” Dìdi catches Chris at the tail end of the summer of 2008, a time of Livestrong bracelets, click-wheel iPods and Paramore’s Riot! t-shirts. For Chris, it’s also a time of significant personal change. Not only is his big sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) about to head off to UC San Diego — which, to a 13-year-old in Fremont, California, might as well be the ends of the earth — Chris is about to start high school, and is trying to figure out who he might be…
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