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The Distinct Yet Resonant Identity Crisis of Dídi

“You’re cute, for an Asian.”
As a white guy, I cannot fully grasp the harshness of that qualifier. But I can empathize with how the sting of it, and its casual manner would nullify any intent of compliment. It’s a sentiment that both singles one out and boxes them in, and the crisis of insecurity and identity it catalyses for the mere thirteen year old Chris Wang (Izaac Wang) is as understandable as it is tragic. Adolescence in the late 2000s is already rough enough.
In this time where nostalgia is a commodity, too often the entertainment industry forgets the caveats. Dídi, the feature directing debut of Sean Wang, remembers them all too specifically, and from the vantage point of his experience most interestingly. As someone who was a teenager in 2008 where this film is set, I can attest to the crassness and cruelty of kids in that time, the casual racism and homophobia and immature edginess that was a cornerstone of many a personality trying to find itself amid the tumult of so many complicated feelings and experiences. Perhaps some of that is still there, but Dídi represents my formative era with an acuteness of detail matched by a compelling and wrenchingly honest portrait of a kid grappling with newly difficult issues of self-esteem and racialization.
That kid is Chris, affectionately called "Didi" ("Little Brother") at home -a likely analogue for Sean Wang himself, who also grew up in Fremont, California. He is the son of Taiwanese immigrants, though his father remains working back home to support the family, as his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen) aspires to make a living off of her artistic pursuits. His older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) is going off to college while his judgement paternal Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua) lives at home and bickers with Chungsing. Through the summer break, Chris spends most of his time attempting to impress his friends and peers -and especially his crush- both in person and online. And while initially it goes alright, before too long it leads to that point I cited earlier, and everything in Chris's social life seems to start falling apart.
Wang recalls and vividly translates both the dumb anxieties of that age and the ways in which they are illustrated. Those moments of Chris digitally chatting with Madi (Mahaela Park), and backspacing sincere sentiment for what he thinks would sound better to her. Or when he tries telling what he thinks is a funny story without reading the room, realizing too late that it is floundering but being too far in and wrapping it up as hastily as possible. And of course just a lot of flat-out lying to make himself look or sound cool, particularly to ingratiate himself to an older group of skateboarder kids who recruit him to record their stunts -to very mixed results. One of my favourite bits is in his messaging with Madi where he looks up her Facebook page and bluffs that A Walk to Remember is one of his favourite movies just because it’s one of hers only to discover minutes later that it is a cheesy romance movie that is a bit embarrassing for a boy his age in his time to admit to liking. It captures exactly the breed of teenage idiocy borne out of those early internet years.
The film situates itself so well in that space. Chunks of the movie live on the internet anthropology of 2008: AOL messaging, MySpace pages, and early Facebook and YouTube (with its 360p video resolution and wild west of amateurs and experimentation). There’s a kick to be had out of how well it is all recreated. But while this and the various reference points and even a few teenage trends of the time (I for one remember the “Nervous” game) date the movie very specifically, it also taps into broader adolescent feelings across generations. The awkwardness and anxiety of Chris and how his online life and relationships factor into it is very reminiscent of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade. But unlike a movie like that, this one stacks another personal issue on top of those broader ones.
The segregation of Chris's family life and social life is vital to the identity he seeks to present. His first scene at home sees his mother and Nai Nai speaking almost exclusively in Mandarin on his and Vivian's university and career prospects while he couldn't care less. With his friends, who are ethnically diverse (though few apparent white kids), he feels liberated from cultural or linguistic difference, and mild racial stereotype is a cornerstone of their casual humour -his nickname is "WangWang", his Korean friend Jimmy's is "Soup". Notably, Chris doesn't engage with it as much as they do -but social acceptance is such a priority for him he feels obliged to tolerate it. Alienation is his great fear, and racially, culturally, it is something that always hangs over him -to the degree he seeks to reject it, silently ashamed of it.
It takes a lot of courage for Wang to address and reckon with that, not only for his own semi-autobiographical sake, but because it clearly connects to the experience and feelings of a lot of immigrant kids. He translates those feelings exceptionally here, through profound subtlety and through fantastic generated performances. Izaac Wang is wonderfully authentic and relatable, conveying all this strife and confusion going on in Chris’s head without being dramatic. Particularly he can summon up teenage embarrassment very well. Meanwhile, though backgrounded for a lot of the movie, Joan Chen ultimately turns out the film’s most moving performance. She is the symbol of a lot of what Chris seeks to reject about himself. Yet she is there for him in his most vulnerable moment in the last act. Chen plays her with a beautiful humility that you can’t help but love -that the teenage lens of this movie even struggles against; and while the story isn’t about her, it doesn’t neglect her either. Sean Wang dedicates the movie to his mom, and it’s clear through his image of her here that she was a significant influence on him.
Chris embraces her near the end, a symbolic embracing of that part of himself he tried to keep down. But it’s a difficult journey to that place, one filled with humiliation and rejection and reluctant self-reflection. Wang articulates it with a fundamental honesty, even as he incorporates stylistic devices like sharp editing and montage techniques to highlight both the humour and sensibility of these kids (one thing the film reminds you is that kids at that age are very weird) and even one or two jaunts into the realm of the surreal -notably at a party where Chris tries weed for the first time. Dídi manages to speak impeccably to those of us who remember in the back of our heads that age and time in all of its nuances -the bad nostalgia perhaps more than the good- but it also relates with such conviction and heart the turbulent specificity of that experience for a kid like Chris, a kid like Sean. A beautiful film that hopes it doesn’t have to be too relatable for those kids of the future.

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