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Dìdi Remembers All Too Well What It’s Like to Be 13
Sean Wang’s directorial debut so vividly recreates the netherworld between middle and high school that it’s kind of hard to watch.
Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade is part of this cohort, as is Jonah Hill’s Mid90s, and while Wang’s contribution has something in common with both, it also unfolds in 2008 in a Bay Area city that’s predominantly Asian, a not-uncommon suburban Californian reality that’s rarely rendered so casually onscreen. Through the character’s typed-and-deleted AIM replies, Google searches about how to kiss, and surveys of his buddies’ top eights on Myspace, the film is a vivid depiction of someone so terrified of being vulnerable that he’d rather block the girl he likes than admit to her he feels embarrassed. Too emotionally constipated to acknowledge how important these women are to him, Chris instead expresses his connection through stealing his sister’s clothes, filming Nǎi Nai’s exercise routines in the backyard, and picking fights with the infinitely patient woman who’s acting as a single parent.
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