Review: Didi (2024)

Was it possible that we all just shared the same experience of living as an Asian American kid in 2000’s California? Did we all struggle through puberty but hid it behind the sparkle graphics on Myspace? Even a better question, do you remember your top 8?

(L to R) Aaron Chang as “Soup”, Izaac Wang as "Chris Wang", Tarnvir Kamboj as "Hardeep", and Raul Dial as "Fahad" in writer/director Sean Wang's DÌDI, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / Talking Fish Pictures, LLC. © 2024 All Rights Reserved.

It took watching Didi to being hit by a tsunami of memories. The movie is a frighteningly astute time capsule of what it was like then. It’s insane to realize that so much has changed yet the feelings of inadequacy and awkwardness linger on.

Being raised as a second generation child means balancing two different cultures and the ability to be a social chameleon depending on the social environment. Oftentimes, it felt like embodying two different personalities. When we were with our non-American community, we hid our diverse personalities to fit the standard. Outside the front door, beyond the the eyes of our parents, we would shed that skin and become our own thing. Didi nails that feeling of those early stages of dealing with teenagerhood while being that model child that our immigrant families worked hard to mold.

Didi is a coming of age in a digital world. Didi (played by Izaac Wang) is the self-given nickname of the main character, is a Taiwanese-American teenage boy who just does every wrong. He’s wrong according to his mom, his sister, the Aunties, and worst of all his friends. We find out way later that being a teenager involves a rocky road of finding just a glimpse of who you are or who you want to be. It’s a question that is not easily answered but it guided by the environment and people they are surrounded with. Sometimes that journey involves skateboarding videos, pool parties, and dead squirrels.

In the insular world of suburbia Fresno, there aren’t many ways to freely explore self and develop an identity. There isn’t much to do in suburbia already outside of work, school, shopping malls, and parks. Even with a diverse group of friends, they are limited to the small community within their streets. Entertainment for this neighborhood is going over to pool parties and watching movies or being a part of some sort of fighting circle with other neighborhood kids.

(L to R) Chiron Cilia Denk as "Donovan", Izaac Wang as "Chris Wang" and Montay Boseman as "Nugget" in writer/director Sean Wang's DÌDI, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / Talking Fish Pictures, LLC. © 2024 All Rights Reserved.

Since childhood, Didi follows along with anything friends say or do. Passively absorbing their jokes, mimicking their actions to the best of his abilities. His goal to copy what is cool without even questioning why or how is it cool. Entertainment for this neighborhood is going over to pool parties and watching movies or being a part of some sort of fighting circle with other neighborhood kids.

It wouldn’t be a coming of age story if there wasn’t a fall of the main character to realize their potential for growth. When it eventually does happen, along with stumbles of social interactions, the audience can’t help but groan and facepalm. It was bound to happen but it does not make it any less awkward. It’s a definite pivotal that many experience and it’s key point of growth. Will he embrace the embarrassment and learn or will he let it weigh upon to the point where he is paralyzed to go outside his comfort zone? Didi a typical teenage boy who is purely fueled by and overabundance of emotions with low levels of common sense . We watch with grimaced faces as he explores other identities when he comes across people outside of his usual friend group.

(L to R) Izaac Wang as "Chris Wang" and Mahaela Park as "Madi" in writer/director Sean Wang's DÌDI, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / Talking Fish Pictures, LLC. © 2024 All Rights Reserved.

On the periphery of editing youtube videos and house parties, there is also the story of Didi’s mother (played by Joan Chen). Left alone to care for two older children and an aging mother in law, the limits of her patience is brittle and at the edge of collapsing. Not only do the older children have to deal with their lives beyond the front door, the mother has to deal with maternal responsibility and trying not to stagger under the weight of her own unhappiness. It’s not easy to raise the dreams of others when your own has been shriveling away.

(L to R) Izaac Wang as "Chris Wang", Chang Li Hua as "Nai Nai" and Joan Chen as "Chungsing Wang" in writer/director Sean Wang's DÌDI, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / Talking Fish Pictures, LLC. © 2024 All Rights Reserved.

What makes Didi stand out as a coming of age story is not just from the perspective of Taiwanese Americas but the technology that the second generation was being bombarded with. During the 2000’, every teenager had to navigate through one of the most prolific period of digital communities. During this particular decade, we saw the rise and fall of early social media companies such as Myspace, LiveJournal, and others buried in our memories. These online communities were the eventual foundation for now standard social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram. During that time, we just wanted to decorate our myspace wall and spend hours choosing a song. As Didi struggles with the weight of both worlds, it is the early days of the internet that he feels even an ounce of confidence and hope to being someone else. With the internet, you can be or learn anything you want. Including how to kiss,

This movie will no doubt transport a certain age group back two decades. Will it make you appreciate the phases of social media? Will it make it long for the days of editing MySpace so that Evanescence would play? Do you remember having a bulky computer with the complimentary big calendar from the local Asian market?

It is a movie of a boy being a teenager getting into all sorts of trouble that can get into in Fresno. It just induces a tumultuous waves of nostalgia. We may not have done exactly what Didi does but Didi will most likely remind you of the journey that you have taken so far. As the credits roll, there is even this sense of connection with the other hundreds of this movie. We were never alone. We all shared the same journey.

Izaac Wang stars as "Chris Wang" in writer/director Sean Wang's DÌDI, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / Talking Fish Pictures, LLC. © 2024 All Rights Reserved.

““Once I went down that path I realized, oh, it’s a mother and son story entrapped in a movie like ‘Stand By Me’. I thought of it as a chart, where it’s going to start with the highest highs of adolescent, in-your-face Jackass humor, and by the end it’s the quietest moment between mother and son. It starts off as a movie about friendship and ends as a movie about family. That was the emotional arc. And I thought, okay, well how do we do that?””

— Sean Wang( Director, Writer, Producer)