One of the most plaintive refrains of the Y2K era was sung by Mark Hoppus of Blink-182: “Well, I guess this is growing up.” Their song was released in 1997 and precedes Sean Wang’s narrative feature debut “Dìdi,” set in 2008, by a decade, but the poignant pop-punk sentiment hangs over this emo-era coming-of-age period piece nevertheless.
Our protagonist, Chris (Izaac Wang), finds himself in a tricky transitional moment: the summer before freshman year of high school. His identity is in flux, wobbling on the ever-shifting grounds of personal insecurity, fickle friendships and family pressure, and his unsteady sense of self is represented in the film by his various names and nicknames.
There’s the endearment “Dìdi” (Mandarin for “little brother”) that Chris is called at home by his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen) and grandmother, Nai Nai (Zhang Li Hua). His middle school friends call him “WangWang,” one of a few silly monikers among his longtime friend group, who preen and posture beyond their years. But he’s also starting to feel that maybe he just wants to be “Chris,” which is how he introduces himself to a group of slightly older skater boys when he’s searching for connection, adrift in a Northern California summer.
In this loosely autobiographical tale, writer/director Wang zeroes in on this specific, fleeting moment of life, just a couple of months long, and throws it all under his cinematic microscope, examining all the awkward agony and brief ecstasies of this age. Wang grew up in Fremont, California, in the mid-aughts and he sets “Dìdi” there, in a Taiwanese American family. He previously mined his personal family specifics for the Oscar nominated documentary short “Nai Nai & Wài Pó,” about his grandmothers, one of whom appears in “Dìdi” as Chris’ grandmother.
In addition to the cultural and geographical specifics, Wang also digs into the distinctive visual, sonic and media environment in which the story takes place. Chris and his friends, who come from a cultural melting pot of East and Southeast Asian American families have been sprouted in a digital media landscape that flowers with MySpace Top 8s, power-pop band merch and AOL Instant Messager chimes. The film opens with a shaky, grainy YouTube video of Chris and his friends blowing up a mailbox, his joyful, childlike face captured in freeze-frame as he’s running away.
Wang utilizes this mixed-media approach to presenting Chris’ life, lived equally offline and on, and the juxtapositions in form reflect what’s happening internally for Chris too. Lo-res DV camera footage of Chris’ pranks and skate tricks that he posts online contrasts the warm, intimate close-ups of the film’s cinematography by Sam A. Davis. Chris’ real-life social interactions are fumbling and uninformed, unlike his online chatting, which is bolstered by furious Google and Facebook searches, trolling digital lives for clues. So much of his social life is mediated though computer screens that in person, he flails.
But it’s not just social media that makes up his world. Race and culture also fundamentally shape his reality, and Wang lets that theme emerge organically but indelibly, allowing the audience to witness how Chris navigates his own Asian American identity. It’s not so hard amongst his Korean and Pakistani middle school friends, but with the white and Black skater guys and their crew, he chafes at the nickname “Asian Chris,” the only moniker he attempts to edit, an attempt that ultimately backfires.
Much of “Dìdi” is about the halting, inadvertent mistakes that Chris makes in his fumbling attempts at connection: when he blocks his crush Madi (Mahaela Park) on AIM instead of telling her how he feels; when he deletes a bunch of videos he’s taken of his new skater friends simply because one was imperfect; or when he explodes at a classmate in a PSAT tutoring session. But Izaac Wang’s performance of this tortured teenage soul, so young, still in braces, is a sensitive expression of the insecurity Chris feels around others and anxiety about how he will be perceived. Wang’s performance is mirrored by Chen as his mother, a housewife with an artist’s heart. She delicately balances steeliness and vulnerability on a knife’s edge to deliver a heartrending performance.
Sean Wang’s commitment to realism means that some of the storylines don’t feel entirely finished, as storylines in life often do. Chris messes up, he wallows, he does his best to make things right, and things don’t always wrap up neatly. He keeps moving forward, his only task is to try and figure out who he is, what he wants, and to feel secure enough to savor those short, blissful moments of connection and freedom. Friends come and go, but family remains, always. We watch his journey to arriving at that simple, but profound realization, and well, I guess this is growing up.
“Dìdi” — 3 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for language throughout, sexual material, and drug and alcohol use involving teens)
Running time: 1:34
How to watch: In theaters July 26