Dìdi

Grade: B

If some – or any – of the following things I’m about to name stir up nostalgia, then Dìdi will be right up your alley. MySpace. Putting together your Top 8. Finding out you’d been demoted from somebody’s Top 8. Using Facebook on a computer. Writing a status in third person. AOL Instant Messenger, and all the sounds associated with it, including: a friend coming online. A friend leaving. Sending and receiving an IM. Away messages. Screensavers. Flip phones. Pressing a number up to four times to get a certain letter for a text message.

Takes you back, right? “Dìdi” means “older sister” in Indian English. I knew it by the Chinese definition: “little brother.” Growing up, I had neighbors from China. I can still hear the daughter’s voice in my head. “Didiiii, stupid? You’re in big trouble, Didi. I’m gonna tell Ma on you.” Writer/director Sean Wang’s film Dìdi is set in the summer of 2008, in the states. The Wangs are a Taiwanese American family. We have a grandmother, mother, 18-year-old daughter, and 13-year-old-son – so I guess both definitions of the movie’s namesake term are represented here.

The character we follow the most is Chris, the young son – a rising 9th grader. It’s a summer in the life of this new teenager as he navigates life, love, family, and friendship. I heard a fellow critic say the character isn’t likable. He’s not a saint. He makes some mistakes, but I saw a good person just trying to learn what the right thing is. Sometimes I rooted for him, and at other points I thought “you’re sleeping in the bed you made, big guy.” In argument scenes with his mom and sister, he says some of the most hurtful lines I’ve heard in a movie since Challengers.

The only actor in Dìdi I recognized was Joan Chen as the mother. She had quite the career in the 90s (Judge Dredd, On Deadly Ground, Oliver Stone’s Heaven & Earth). Zhang Li Hua as the grandmother is a scene-stealer, particularly in a bit where she jumps to the worst case scenario. “You shouldn’t do that, because A will happen and then B will happen and before you know it, XYZ will happen.” You’ll laugh because what she’s saying is funny, and at how drawn out the speech is. Not everything goes down the way I wished it had, but of all the through-lines and recurring themes, my favorite was the arc of his relationship with his big sister. They start off really butting heads, and are good friends by the end.

There’s not much in the way of a beginning-to-end story here. It’s very episodic. (This thing happens, then this thing happens, then this thing happens…) However, it’s a mostly strong series of ideas and vignettes carried through by convincing performances all around. The 93 minute runtime means it doesn’t stick around long enough to wear out its welcome. Think of Dìdi as a pretty good album. You wouldn’t give it a Grammy for Album of the Year, but there’s a handful of fantastic singles on it.

Grade: B