2008 was weird for you too, right?
We’ve reached a point in the life cycle of Millenials when our childhoods are beginning to be reexamined through media with the perspective lens that only time brings. The nebulous period between 2000 and 2010 was a funhouse mirror of shifting culture, exploding technology, changing societal norms, and utter chaos. It’s only now, some fifteen years later, that I realize we were all trying to figure out our place in a world that was evolving faster than ever before without us even knowing it. It’s a common refrain but how do you know you are living through unprecedented times when you’re living through them?
“Dìdi”, a largely autobiographical feature debut from Sean Wang, steeps itself in this malaise even further by placing its central character Chris (Izaac Wang) at the hinge point of childhood/adulthood: the summer just before high school. Not quite a child but certainly not an adult, Chris stares down the barrel of real-life traumas (an absent father, feeling like an outsider in an outsider’s community, and a strained relationship with his mother, sister, and grandmother) while front-loading the things that matter most to anyone who was ever fourteen (his first kiss, not saying the wrong thing, acting cool without knowing what that means). ‘Coming of Age’ movies are often trite, if effective, in this balance of introspection and nostalgia. “Stand By Me”, “The Sandlot”, and even Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” tackled similar themes to wide critical success. But “Dìdi” showcases something different, something that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so efficiently represented in a movie before. Something that made me feel anti-nostalgic and otherwise unwell in the best way.
“Dìdi”, which translates to ‘younger brother’, begins with a literal starter pistol, an exploding mailbox, that primes you to believe this will be a feel-good story filled with youthful hijinks. Early in the movie, Chris tries to talk to his crush and has some fledgling success. We as an audience are primed by movies of a similar nature to believe that this will be the running plot of the movie; nerdy kid grows up and gets the girl. Not at all. This thread, one of several interweaved throughout the film, plays out in the most wrenching, realistic fashion; leaving Chris at a loss to figure out what he did wrong and we, the wizened audience, understanding that he’s a long way away from figuring that out. “Dìdi” does not offer Chris any easy answers. When he befriends a group of older skater boys who take him on as a “filmer”, Chris is sure that he’s passed GO and collected $200, that he’s lucked out of the painful phase of growing up by finding cool friends. The joke is on him ultimately; not because these boys don’t accept him, but because he is an immature, angry, frightened child and they are not. We shouldn’t judge Chris too harshly. It’s hard to watch someone who could have been you make your mistakes all over again. We were all little jerks once upon a time.
While I hate to differ from my friend who watched the movie with me and was tickled by every little beat of nostalgia, whether it be a Paramore shirt or a particular YouTube video, I couldn’t have been more forlorn watching Chris tumble headlong into quicksand pits of his own creation. I can’t remember a time when I felt the quiet panic of being a teenager so acutely represented, so rawly portrayed behind the veneer of a good time coming-of-age romp. Chris is not me, his experiences as a second-generation Taiwanese immigrant in America couldn’t be further from my own, but there are moments in the film that took me to places I hoped to have left far in my rearview. The tepid bathwater of adolescence leaves a stink in its wake, a stain that rubs away only so much over time but is still visible in the right light. I watched the film afraid for Chris; unsure how he might maneuver his way out from the screaming squalls of his own creation, knowing he was ill-equipped to do so without sizable collateral damage. Ultimately I was relieved, and quite moved, to find that Sean Wang found salvation for Chris in the place it comes from for us all; through the kind words of the people who, despite our not deserving it, love us for who we are. A hard-won victory, to be sure, but one that has stuck with me for days since my screening, a feeling of warm wistfulness largely based upon the quiet devastation that is Joan Chen’s performance as Chris’ mother. Her work in this film is titanic and should be witnessed far and wide.
As equally intimate and universal as the best movies of its ilk, “Dìdi” is the kind of experience that will never set the world on fire but might blaze a soft simmer in places of your mind you longed to forget. Its message reminds us that being a teenager is a traumatic nightmare that we all pretend is normal but is not. At least we know several billion other folks who have the same experience to lean on for help. As the philosopher once said, I guess this is growing up.
Check out “Dìdi” for a blast from the past one way or another. Maybe you’ll be like my friend and walk out bopping to ‘Motion City Soundtrack’ or maybe you’ll be like me and feel the need to be a little kinder to fourteen-year-old you. Either way…
…you’ll be glad you did.
“Dìdi” is NOW PLAYING at The Broad Theater.
