It takes a certain maturity to make – and appreciate – a good coming-of-age film. Sean Wang’s debut feature is the tale of Chris Wang (Izaac Wang, no relation to the director), a Taiwanese American boy growing up in the Bay Area, California, in the late 00s – a time of AOL Instant Messenger and emo punk posturing. But it’s also about Chris’s mum, Chungsing (Joan Chen), offering a compassionate insight into the struggles of an immigrant parent that few self-involved 13-year-olds could muster. The tender teen years have been lovingly chronicled by successive generations of first-time US film-makers, but up until fairly recently it was rare for kids such as Chris – the children of immigrants from places like India, Korea, China and Iran – to see their young lives reflected on screen with any kind of cultural specificity. Much less the woven-in, naturalistic kind that Dìdi pursues from its title onwards: “Dìdi”, the Chinese word for “little brother”, is what Chris’s family call him, an endearing, slightly infantilising nickname that he is all too eager to shake off. Whereas outside home, Chris introduces himself as Wang Wang, a juvenile and mildly insulting nickname that he doesn’t yet realise he’s ready to outgrow. 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Los Angeles Times, January 2024
PARK CITY, UT - JANUARY 19: Joan Chen of 'Didi' is photographed for Los Angeles Times on January 19, 2024 at the LA Times Studio at Sundance Film Festival presented by Chase Sapphire in Park City, Utah. PUBLISHED IMAGE. CREDIT MUST READ: Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times via Contour RA. (Photo by Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times via Contour RA by Getty Images) The comeback queen: actor Joan Chen on self-doubt, success, savagings – and a second chance at 63 Read more Since Chris and his “bridge generation” peers didn’t yet have Dìdi, they watch Superbad, the 2007 comedy about high school seniors, played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, attempting to lose their virginity. Or maybe the 1999 teen gross-out comedy American Pie, which Dìdi also gently riffs on, without featuring directly. Thankfully, Chris doesn’t pound a patriotic baked desert in an attempt to gain sexual experience, but his low-key version involves apple slices and a YouTube kissing tutorial, and is no less awkward or “American” for it.