In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, a... Read allIn 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
- Awards
- 4 wins & 9 nominations
- Cory
- (as Sunil Maurillo)
- Georgien
- (as Dalila George August)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaZhang Li Hua, the actress who plays grandma Nai Nai, is director Sean Wang's real-life grandmother. She had previously co-starred in Wang's Academy Award-nominated documentary short Nai Nai & Wài Pó (2023).
- GoofsOne of the Paramore posters in Vivian's room features a logo with three slashes for the E in "Paramore", which the band didn't start using until 2013. The film takes place in 2008.
- Quotes
Vivian Wang: [Bursts into Chris's room grabs him by the neck] If you ever pee in my bottle of lotion again, I'm gonna period in your mouth when you're asleep.
Chris Wang: [Yells] Mom!
- SoundtracksStolen Texts
composed by Giosue Greco
In that way, the experiences of Didi's protagonist, Chris ("Wang Wang" to his friends and "Didi" to his mother)-the microaggressions directed at him, his shortcomings when reacting to his mother and friends, and even the way he codeswitches his name-are presented to the non-Asian American audience as a way of highlighting the different struggles and paths toward growth in an Asian American's coming-of-age story.
Even though adolescent angst has so many universal elements across all American experiences of it, audiences can relate to the awkwardness and shame and uncertainty portrayed in movies like Boyhood and Eighth Grade-and particularly the desire to fit in at school, with friends, or among family-differently than in Didi. Because there's a uniqueness in the tension of Didi's titular character. It's not just about fitting in to a world that is unrecognizable, one without the freedom and infinite possibilities of childhood imaginings but instead burdened by the rigid structures of socially imposed order, an inherent hierarchy perpetuated by class and culture in inculcated in our youth by media consumption and unspoken mores. There's also a cultural tension in Didi, a desire not to be like your sister or the other Asian American kids, to shirk the stereotypes and be less Asian (and more white). Chris must navigate fitting into an external world that is both his and not his, that is extremely familiar and yet so separate from his world at home-as evidenced by the different names he uses with his mother versus his old friends versus his new friends
By setting the movie in the early 2000s, Didi asks the audience to remember our own fledgling teenage years. And in that reflection, the Asian American audience sees ourselves (thematically, if not specifically) on screen. And the non-Asian American audience is meant to notice the differences, but still relate to the awkwardness and the desire to make friends and lose your virginity and steal from your siblings and yell at your mom. By noticing these differences in a quintessentially American coming-of-age story, the foreign moments become familiar and their own uniquely experienced adolescence becomes a little more universal.
- trelaineito
- Sep 4, 2024
- Permalink
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $4,443,930
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $207,307
- Jul 28, 2024
- Gross worldwide
- $4,663,323
- Runtime1 hour 33 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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