Dìdi (dir. Sean Wang)
By: Adam Freed
Personal memories of the pivotal summer between the eighth and ninth grades can hardly be considered trustworthy. In fact, they can’t really be considered memories at all. As an emotional defense mechanism, the mind tends to cling only to the stories in which one is painted in the hues of a protagonist. All of the inescapable teen feelings of insecurity, isolation, and social detachment aren't something most adults tend to call to the forefront because somewhere in time, the survival instinct, erases those feelings as soon as they are no longer prevalent. For those fortunate enough to experience writer and director Sean Wang’s autobiographical heartbreak Dìdi, it will feel as if the 29-year-old filmmaker has the ability to reach into the deepest recesses of long repressed memories, and call back to the surface the decades-old hurt and discomfort that the teen years have to offer. Wang’s film isn’t a story about trauma or catastrophic events by any means, rather it is a masterful depiction of the cumulative impact of teen social anxiety as it happens in real time.
The film’s central figure is 14-year-old Chris Wang, who lives in a multi-generational suburban California home governed by three generations of women. Chris’ grandmother Nai Nai, his mother Chungsing and his older sister Vivian, only weeks shy of leaving for college, represent a tiered system of culturally informed control over his life. The young teen is left as the home’s only male, while Chris’ father lives in Taiwan earning money for his family, a noble act that leaves his son without a contributing male presence in his life. So much of the secondhand embarrassment and teeth gnashing that audiences will experience in watching Chris Wang meander repeatedly down undesirable social paths in search of a comfortable identity, eventually manifest a sledgehammer of truth. Somewhere in the film’s third act the realization will wash over keen audiences that the awkward embarrassment through which they have been suffering isn’t the result of observational stimuli but rather the product of their own dormant insecurities. The young filmmaker unearths the uneasiness that Dìdi provokes by allowing his film to mirror the shared painful commonality of one’s formative years.
The heartbreak audiences may feel while watching Dìdi is not that of a tragic story, rather one in which the film majestically earns the knowing tears of shared experience, one that most adults are either unable or unwilling to bear. Dìdi is an old song of remembrance that echoes just how impossible a job it is to be 14 years old. It is quite possible that audiences may reject the truth Sean Wang offers in his profound work. A rejection that may come in defense of their own youthful misdeeds, or through the helpless realization that their own children will inevitably experience the daunting task of becoming a teen. Sean Wang’s film is not brash, it is not flashy and it certainly isn’t expensive, yet for those willing to absorb Dìdi with an open heart and mind, it may very well be the most insightful film of the year.
Target Score: 9/10 Writer and director Sean Wang crafts a painfully relevant autobiographical story about a teenager’s crippling desire for social acceptance. The true gift that Dìdi provides audiences is the opportunity to see themselves at 14, and possibly pay forward the grace that should be bestowed upon those who currently brave its embrace.