Didi is easily one of the more out-of-nowhere films to come out this year. With very limited press prior to its theatrical release and then hardly any news about its arrival on streaming. Yet still it had made the rounds of the film side of X/Twitter, and all I heard were great things. So, I decided to give the film a look.
The film follows the story of 13-year-old Chris Wang (Izaac Wang), an Asian American child living in Fremont, California with his mother, grandmother and older sister in the summer of 2008. Wang is hitting the age where so much of his life is changing. He’s headed to high school and now life isn’t so simple. The movie deftly portrays what it was like growing up in that era, something that really hit home for me as having lived through that era at roughly the same age (I was 10 in 2008).
I was especially impressed by how simple debut-director Sean Wang, who also wrote and produced Didi, was able to portray that era of burgeoning technology. The era of myspace and AIM and what it was like growing up in that time frame. He’s able to make it all seem so simple yet endlessly complex. He captures the natural reality of how children behaved then. Nothing feels forced or out of touch for the time period, which I appreciated.
That’s really where Didi‘s greatest strength lies. Wang’s script is so airtight that nothing escapes. There’s no moment that feels unnecessary or out of place. In fact, 95% of the film feels like something I would have experienced growing up then, and I lived across the entire country from there. It speaks to the relatability of a film like this one. I wish more films had the gusto to create something as natural as this.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch how deftly the film deals with issues like living in an immigrant household. There’s so much life to the film that Wang obviously brought from his own experiences. More and more films have begun to explore the experiences of Asian American immigrant households in recent years, most famously Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, but Didi holds its own with a strong portrayal of that life.
Final Thoughts
Didi is a must watch for anyone who grew up in the Myspace era. But beyond that, it tells a fantastic story that I think anyone can relate too. Strong performances are in abundance and there’s a lot to love about a film that shows in intimate detail what it’s like to grow up. Now that it’s out on streaming, everyone should check out Didi.
