How ‘Dìdi’ Director Sean Wang Created a Love Letter to the MySpace and AIM Era With His Deeply Personal Coming-of-Age Story
variety.comBrent Lang Executive Editor Back in 2008, MySpace was cool, flip phones were popular and it kinda sucked to be a 13-year-old boy.
Technology has changed a lot since then, but as “Dìdi” — a touching, frequently hilarious coming-of-age story that unfolds in the early aughts — reminds us, the agony and indignity of being a teenager is timeless. “Boyhood is messy,” says Sean Wang, the film’s 30-year-old writer and director, looking barely out of boyhood himself as he chats on Zoom from his living room. “And the experience of adolescence is pretty consistent across the generations.
It’s why I can watch ‘400 Blows’ — a movie made before I was even born — and see myself in it.” When “Dìdi” premiered at Sundance in January, where it earned some of the festival’s strongest reviews, lots of people saw themselves in Chris Wang, an awkward Taiwanese American kid growing up in the Bay Area.
As he struggles to fit in, Chris twists away from his friends and family, lurching toward something cooler that’s just out of reach.
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