Didi (弟弟) (2024)

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From Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sean Wang, Dìdi (弟弟) will premiere in limited theaters across the country on July 26, 2024.

Focus Features acquired the worldwide rights to the film following its premiere in competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it received critical and audience acclaim, winning both the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast.

The movie will also have its Texas premiere at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) Film & TV Festival, slated as a "festival favorite." Dìdi (弟弟) is written and directed by Wang.

The film is set in 2008 in the Bay Area, and is a funny, irreverent, and affecting ode to first-generation teenagers navigating the joy and chaos of adolescence as seen through the lens of a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy, played by Izaac Wang (Good Boys, Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon). The film is produced by Carlos López Estrada, Josh Peters, Valerie Bush, and Sean Wang. It stars Joan Chen, Shirley Chen, and Chang Li Hua. Dìdi (弟弟) is an Antigravity Academy and Spark Features production—with Chris Quintos Cathcart, Tyler Boehm, Robina Riccitiello, Joan Chen, Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus, Dave A. Liu, and Jennifer J. Pritzker serving as executive producers.

Wang said, “Dìdi (弟弟) is the movie I’ve always wanted to see: a coming-of-age story set in a place I know, starring people who look like those I knew, during a time when we are the worst versions of ourselves having the best time of our lives. It's been a dream to see the film resonate with so many others since our premiere at Sundance, and I’m so excited to partner with Focus to get to share this story with even more audiences who will hopefully be able to see a version of themselves in it as well.”

After the film's wildly successful premiere at Sundance, Wang quickly became an emerging director to watch. He recently was nominated for an Oscar for his documentary short Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó, which premiered at SXSW last year and won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. (Focus Features Press Release)

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[dex14]

One of my favorites from Sundance.

[filmbuffTX]

YouTube

[The Great Owl]

Five stars

In 2008, during the golden age of MySpace and AOL Instant Messenger, Chris, a 13 year-old boy played by Izaac Wang, struggles to navigate the complexities of friendships and romantic crushes amid the pecking order of the adolescent social scene in the final summer days before his freshman year of high school in Fremont, California. He yearns to escape the monotony of home life, barely speaking to his beleaguered mother, played by Joan Chen, and her demanding mother-in-law, played by Zhang Li Hua, while his father is working overseas and while his older sister, played by Shirley Chen, prepares to leave for college. When he meets a crew of local skateboarders, Chris offers to film their hijinks, hoping to endear himself to a hip crowd by way of YouTube videos.

The 2024 coming-of-age drama, Dìdi (弟弟; “Younger Brother”), written and directed by Sean Wang, graces its narrative with touches of humor, but pulls no punches when it comes to reminding us the viewers of the hellish awkwardness of our own early teenage days, when we all stopped trying to impress our parents and started trying to impress everyone else, with the all-too-often end result of making a horrible wreck out of everything. Izaac Wang's titular lead character is portrayed unflinchingly as a flawed person who often behaves in despicable ways towards his family and friends while plowing ahead with the tunnel vision that we all had when we ourselves were 13 years old and saw ourselves as the star of the game in the playing field that is the world around us. Joan Chen, in turn, excels as the mom whose reactions betray her hurt feelings even as she understands that all kids take the loving sacrifices of their parents for granted when they are of a certain age.

Dìdi is a wonderful and tremendous film, one of my absolute favorites in recent memory, because it compels me to ponder the carelessness and unintentional cruelness that marked my own youth, when I wanted to be cool so desperately that I shifted friend allegiances at the drop of a hat while acting embarrassed just to be around my own family. These days, I chuckle and cringe in equal measures while reflecting on those years, because I am astounded in retrospect...truly astounded...that anyone even remotely tolerated me when I was in middle school and in high school. Like most other adults who are now capable of the brutal self-awareness that comes with emotional maturity, I realize that one reason why I was never as popular as I wanted to be as a teenager and why I did not have as many girlfriends at that age was simply because, a lot of the time, I was just a terrible person.

I do not know if Sean Wang intended this screen story to be an autobiographical account of his own adolescence, but I get the impression that he crafted it as a long-belated apology to his own family and friends, the sort of apology that many of us would like to have made with such impactful depth. Dìdi is intelligent enough not to wrap a bow on the story of Chris with a happily-ever-after finale where he is absolved of all damage done, but it does leave us with a warm smile because we sense that he is beginning to come into his own and, like most of us, will eventually feel love and understanding toward everyone whose paths he crossed at that juncture in his life. As we grow older, the fanciful hopes and dreams that we had for the future back when we were 13 years old rarely, if ever, come to fruition, but we can still proudly become the best versions of ourselves.

[SleazyForWeasley]

Damn near perfect. If I had to pick my Top 3 of 2024 so far, this would be on that list along with Strange Darling and Kneecap.

[MazeRunner]

One of the best of the year. My theatre never got it so I waited for digital. Can’t wait to own the Blu-ray.