Didi

Last night I decided to have another double feature at the Broadway and I started with Didi because it is one that I missed at Sundance this year.  I absolutely loved this touching portrait of early adolescence.  Chris Wang (Izaac Wang) is spending the final weeks of the summer before his freshman year of high school suffering from teenage angst.  His awkward behavior pushes his best friends Fahad (Raul Dial) and Soup (Aaron Chang) away and his attempt to get closer to his crush Madi (Macaela Park) ends in embarrassment.  He tries to befriend a group of skateboarders by promising to create videos of their tricks but this eventually backfires.  His father is away working in Taiwan, his grandmother Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua) is critical of everything he does, his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen) embarrasses him, and his sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) bickers endlessly with him.  Just when he feels alienated by everyone in his life, his mother gives him the courage to start high school with his head held high.  What I loved most about this movie is that even though it is about a very specific perspective (the child of Chinese immigrants dealing with the pressure to succeed) and a specific time (the early days of social media in 2008) it is also universal in that almost everyone can relate to what Chris feels and experiences as he tries to navigate the transition to high school (I had a flashback to when I called my crush but then immediately hung up when he answered because i didn't know what to say).  I also like that the filmmakers don't sentimentalize Chris because a lot of his problems are of his own making and they don't magically disappear after his moment of catharsis.  Izaac Wang gives a wonderful performance but I was most impressed with Joan Chen because she portrays the hurt and anger that Chungsing feels with subtlety, especially in a scene when she responds to criticism from her mother-in-law.  Finally, I loved seeing the early iterations of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook!  This is a movie that I think anyone can enjoy and I highly recommend it!