Dìdi
It is not common, but sometimes I go back to a movie and find that my first opinion was too negative. Upon seeing Sean Wang’s emotionally devastating coming of age film “Didi” at Sundance for the first time where it took home the festival’s audience award I believed his follow-up to his Oscar-nominated documentary short (“Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó”) was, at best, a carbon copy of the kind of tropey, saccharine mining of memories that has become Sundance’s bread and butter. Passing references to “Eighth Grade,” “Skate Kitchen,” “Mid90s,” “Minari” and “Minding the Gap” were visible all better movies that seemed to catch their desired spirit with more urgency and originality. But on a second watch recently, I found “Didi” to be much stronger than I initially gave it credit for.
Here are some universal things about Wang’s story that happen in many films: Chris Wang (Isaac Wang) Didi to his mom and Wang Wang to everyone else is on the cusp of high school, about to go through all the growing pains involved with moving from middle school to teendom. He is an outsider among outsiders in his mostly white Fremont enclave, tellingingly, he only hangs out with other people of color, like Farad (Raul Diad) and Jimmy/Soup (Aaron Chang). But even they are assimilating into some toxic white bro shit that becomes common around then. Their slow drift away from him does nothing but further alienate Chris.
Love or affection seem impossible for Chris to attain anywhere. He has a crush on Madi (Mahaela Park), who he meets at a party and talks with on AOL Instant Messenger. When his friends implore him to push his sexual boundaries, though, Chris is still too young; too scared to make that leap. Even in these timid expressions of his inchoate feelings, so much is laid bare. “You’re pretty cute, for an Asian boy,” Madi who might have some issues around her own identity says backhandedly. Several racial slippages occur throughout “Didi”: Chris tells people he’s only half Asian; he accuses his doting mom of being too Asian; a group of boys slap the word “Asian” onto “Chris” when they chant his name. Chris wants to be the loud hypermasculine cool kid, but it isn’t him; when he tries, he comes across as mean and vicious and just plain hurtful.
His older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) is the enemy until she recognizes his deep loneliness, his smothering mother Chungsing (Joan Chen), an aspiring artist who catches hell from her mother in law and rebellious kids while her husband works in Taiwan and his classmates, who think he’s just weird. Chris looks for acceptance with a group of older skaters and from his friends at school but each only expose the inadequacies he sees in himself.
He often makes this personal journey through on the nose choices, like using AOL Instant Messenger through a bot to type out the deep, dark insecurities he’s too afraid to say out loud. His Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua), a comedic figure representing an older generation’s perception of success and gender roles, is a loose thread that sorta falls away in the film’s second half. While cinematographer Sam A. Davis does well to capture 2008 from recreating a camcorder aesthetic to composing luminous compositions that seem to capture the brightness of the California sun he sometimes gets heavy-handed with his use of shadows, to the point of obscuring a touching farewell scene between Chris and Vivian.
“Didi” is at its best when it shakes up this genre’s common visual language, but it can’t find enough opportunities outside its narrative driven graphic sequences. Absurd animation of talking dead fish, a re-animated squirrel and a fever dream where figurines from a mini golf course haunt Chris are some of the major whimsical departures that give this film its own spin. Those wonderful swings further connect the film with its late aughts vibe, which recreates everything from early Facebook to late era Myspace, and the kind of off kilter videos that once proliferated the height of Youtube. Throw in some winking references to “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember,” along with some flip phones, and even the era, one spurred by the misplaced hope of change, has an unlikely air of nostalgia.
“Didi” also finds further vigor whenever the camera settles on Chen. As Chris’ mother, the actress delivers the slightest twinge of hurt and pang of anger without ever overreaching. It takes a powerful actress to recite a speech you’ve heard in a million other films, such as her major heart to heart with Chris, without it ever feeling overly familiar or, even worse, trite. Chen pulls off that incredible, tender trick with astonishing effortlessness making for a powerful foil with her younger but no less impressive co star Wang. As the final grace notes of “Didi” began to strike, I remembered that I’ve seen this kind of story many times before. And yet I found myself glad to press rewind.
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