By Jana Monji
Does anyone enjoy remembering their last moments of childhood before making tentative and anxious steps into the adulthood prep school hell of high school? In an impressive feature film debut, writer/director Sean Wang gives us a look at the last month of summer for Chris “Wang Wang” Wang (Isaac Wang) as he fights with family members and fumbles with his first love interest. The award-winning Dìdi (弟弟) is by turns cringy and humorous and seems almost designed to make one take sides, for or against our young protagonist.
Chris is the titular young brother and he has his besties Fahad (Raul Dial) and Jimmy (Aaron Chang). They call him “Wang Wang” and aren’t your good kids and they aren’t your stereotypical smart Asian American kids. They blow up a neighbor’s metal mailbox and post the video on YouTube. But this is 2008 and social media hasn’t activated the hunting down of young hooligans yet. MySpace is still the largest social networking site in the world. YouTube is still young (having launched in 2003). Twitter launched in 2006. Social media was in its infancy. Instagram wouldn’t release until 2010; TikTok wouldn’t launch until 2016.
At home, Chris is called Dìdi, which literally means younger brother. At 13, Chris is a young teen and in one month, his elder sister will leave for college and he will enter high school, but that’s not going to be a smooth journey. As the writer, Sean Wang doesn’t make it easy to like our young protagonist. You might have already decided Chris and his friends are hooligans or degenerates for their act of destructive vandalism or you might consider them comrades in crime or inspirations.
At the dinner table, the audience will discover further divisiveness. His paternal grandmother Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua) criticizes his artistic mother Chungsing (Joan Chen). Chris bickers with his older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen). On this particular night, Vivian is disgruntled because her younger brother steals her sweatshirts and wears them. When Vivian and Chris call each other names and throw food, Nai Nai’s blames her daughter-in-law. Chris’ unseen father remains in Taiwan, working to give his wife and kids the American dream which seems more like a cultural clash nightmare.
In a petty act of revenge, Chris pees in his sister’s skin lotion. Does that make Chris heroic or more loathsome?
At this point in the film, I found Chris totally disgusting, a brat without boundaries, but Sean Wang’s insightful writing and sensitive direction and an excellent ensemble cast that give the nuanced feel of authenticity slowly pulled me into empathy.
Chris is struggling into adulthood. His besties are more confident with girls and after an outing at a miniature golf course, leave Chris behind because with the girls there’s no room in the car. You might be thinking Chris needs new friends and a girlfriend.
Chris is infatuated with a particular girl, Madi (Mahaela Park), and studies her via her MySpace page. He does try to make new friends who are older and better at skateboarding.
How does Chris make new friends? How does he woo Madi? Chris can’t ask his absentee dad. He’s on bad terms with his sister. He’s embarrassed by his mother. Those born into the internet culture instinctively know the solution. Chris tries to learn how to video skateboarding and how to kiss via YouTube. If you’ve tried to become an instant expert, you probably know how this goes.
What writer/director seems to observe is how the absence of a father figure and a broader Taiwanese culture doesn’t prepare Chris to understand and decode the code-switching required to live comfortably between cultures and subcultures. Chris doesn’t understand how men talk in mixed gender groups or the possible variations within the Taiwanese culture. Sean Wang doesn’t allow Dìdi to descend into a syrupy happy ending. Chris won’t be transformed into the confident, popular kid with good grades and his relationships within his friends and family won’t be resolved into big smiles. There will be a softening into love and appreciation within his family but there are no villains here.
Last year, Sean Wang’s documentary short Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó” (奶奶跟外婆) about his maternal and paternal grandmothers living together in Fremont, California was nominated for an Academy Award. This year, Dìdi , his first feature film made its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival (19 January 2024) where it won the Audience Award (US Dramatic) and US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble.
Dìdi opens in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles on July 26 and then the following weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area. A wider national rollout is planned for August 16.
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