Didi film review and star rating: ★★★★
Noughties nostalgia is finding form on the big screen. Following last week’s I Saw The TV Glow, coming-of-age drama Didi follows a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy who loves skating and girls, and grappling with the social media age, he tries to fit in despite feeling different in many ways.
Set in 2008, Izaac Wang plays Chris, nicknamed Didi in this subtle and affecting look at the social rights of passage that consume our thoughts growing up.
The cultural markers, such as flip phones and a late 2000s version of YouTube, might instil a sense longing for those who were around prior to smartphone dominance. Mostly, however, it’s about being a kid and experiencing the many pitfalls of youth, especially when you’re different, and Wang gets into the character brilliantly.
There are some fine supporting performances as well, particularly former Twin Peaks star Joan Chen as Didi’s overwrought mother, struggling to manage the family in the absence of her husband who is always away for work. Like many of the best films about childhood, Wang’s film offers an occasional glimpse at the difficulties of adulthood that we wouldn’t be aware of as youngsters at the time, causing you to think back to your own childhood.
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Many movies exploit the past in the hope that the nostalgia will make up for a lack of depth. But director Sean Wang’s piece feels different, engrossing itself in the good and bad of the period and not only presenting one positive image, it is raw and uncompromising in its portrayal of the formative years.
It feels intensely personal, coming from a writer/director who would have come of age in the period, but what’s most clever is there’s a universality too.
The Didi film is in cinemas now
Read more: I Saw The TV Glow is the beginning of noughties nostalgia – review