DìDi: Sean Wang’s Breakthrough First Feature Refreshes Coming-of-Age
Now In Theaters: NY & LA July 26th; Everywhere August 16th.
Izaac Wang in Dìdi, credit: Sundance, Focus Features
DìDi, in many ways, is an ugly film: the unvarnished truth kind of ugly. Rising star Sean Wang has written and directed a very real, very raw account of boyhood through the eyes of Chris “Wang-Wang,” captured by an equally believable and joyous young actor Izaac Wang (Raya and the Last Dragon, Good Boys). Fueled by Sean Wang’s heartfelt script, the film’s authenticity pulls us from laughter to tears, as we become invested in this tightly focused—but universally affecting—coming-of-age journey ... complete with the unavoidable ugliness of growing up.
Selected from a pool of 4000+ Sundance submissions DìDi not only won an Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize but also secured a theatrical release by Focus Features for this coming summer. Wang’s talent for poignant narratives isn’t a one-off, either: just one day after receiving a well-deserved standing ovation at the DìDi premiere, the 29-year-old director was nominated for an Oscar for Nai Nai and Wài Pó, a documentary short about his grandmothers (now streaming on Disney+).
When you consider Wang’s academic and professional path—including his time at USC, the Google Creative Lab, the Sundance Ignite Fellowship and Sundance’s Writing/Directing lab—this impressive debut feels almost inevitable. Throughout his fellowships, Wang meticulously developed DìDi, pouring over six years’ worth of drafts to perfect the script. His early short films foreshadow DìDI’s creative focus, proving how long these ideas have been bouncing around in his brain. And now, with the help of Anti-Gravity Academy, a hyphenate production house and educational initiative for emerging filmmakers, founded by filmmaker Carlos Lopes Estrada, Wang’s voice will reach an international audience. But none of this would have happened without attention to detail.
During our interview, Wang made sure to distinguish that DìDi—named after the Chinese word for younger brother, and a term of endearment—is “personal, but not autobiographical.” Unfiltered, sometimes painful, the details of Chris’s story will resonate with all ages and backgrounds. The beauty of this film lies in a larger truth: from struggling to craft the perfect text to a crush—then deleting, then rewriting, then abandoning the whole effort—to losing his temper and shouting regrettable things at his mom, Chris navigates a tough world many of us have known all too well.
Interviewing writer/director Sean Wang before the Dìdi premiere at Sundance. Left to right: Sean Wang, Coco Ma, Dylan Kai Dempsey.
Wang builds this world by emphasizing specifics of time and place. DìDi doesn’t merely unfold in a California of the Past; it’s set in Fremont, California, during the late 2000’s, mirroring experiences shared by Wang and his own best friends. Meticulous details like decked-out MySpace pages, labor-intensive T9 texting, and the color combos of the bands on their braces all feel so vivid that we can practically taste the excitement of breaking a high score on Snake.
Even more crucial, DiDi illuminates specific cultures and backgrounds. Inspired by his own favorite coming-of-age movies—Stand by Me, Rat Catcher, Eighth Grade—Wang has long been determined to change the genre’s lack of onscreen representation, the total absence of people who looked like him. “That was the core of why I wanted to make this movie. I wanted to make it for me and my friends, because even though I see a version of myself in those movies, they never starred people who looked like us.” At first he worried that an emphasis on people who “looked and talked” like them might eclipse his narrative; but instead, it led to a flourish of cultural references, a richness that enhanced the entire story. Chris’s Asian-American identity is never the central focus. Rather, his culture is subtly interwoven, conveyed but not dwelled upon. In other words, it’s intrinsic: in the meals he shares with his sister, mother, and grandmother; in the discomfort when Wang-Wang watches his Caucasian friends tread into his house without removing their shoes; during the car ride where he talks in English while his mother responds in Chinese. And, yes, when his crush calls him “cute, for an Asian.”
Didi refreshes the coming-of-age-genre on multiple levels. It’s specific in time, place and culture, yet remains universal. It’s painfully honest, and therefore more fully human. It shares details that we don’t often see. It widens our perspective—and for me, as a born-and-raised North American with Asian parents, this film is incredibly validating. And rare: the identities of Wang’s onscreen Asians are not defined solely by surface attributes. As both writer and director, he accomplished his goal. Instead of making DiDi “explicitly an Asian-American story,” he focused on “a boy who happens to be Asian American.” The result is entertaining, original, evocative—and sure to pave the way for more fresh perspectives. We all still have some coming-of-age to do.
You can check out our full interviews at the link below:
Interviews conducted at Sundance Film Festival 2024 by Coco Ma and Dylan Kai Dempsey.
Dìdi played in the U.S. Dramatic Competition.
91 min. Scheduled for theatrical release by Focus Features in NY and LA on July 26th . In theaters everywhere August 16th, 2024.
