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Didi Movie Review

Didi is a 2024 coming-of-age drama film directed by Sean Wang and starring Izaac Wang. It’s a familiar, but well done teenage drama.

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“If you ever pee in my bottle of lotion again,

I’m gonna period in your mouth when you’re asleep“

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In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American uses social media to escape from his underwhelming childhood and overburdened mother, but the Internet also accentuates his preexisting feelings of personal inadequacy. This is one of those extremely personal autobiographical stories for better and for worse. It’s relatable to a degree, but also too specific.

I missed this era of the Internet as a teen by a couple of years, so I couldn’t fully relate to this movie, but I did find it to be very grounded in reality and quite truthful in the negative influences of the Internet, especially during this era. The movie does explore internalized racism, but in a subtle manner, which I really appreciated.

It is above all else about the dangers of online spaces and how they can further increase the fears and insecurities of these young impressionable minds. The protagonist isn’t like me at all, so I couldn’t connect with him on a personal level, but there are many people like him out there, especially men, so it will be relatable for most who remember their turbulent teenage years.

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Didi is at its best when it’s tackling the online discourse through those dated and funny chat screens. The film recreates this era in meticulous detail, making for a melancholic and nostalgic feel to it. I did find the mother-son relationship somewhat rushed. Those scenes were so well acted and moving, but also too sparse, thus we failed to see them truly simmer. Sean Wang did a very good job directing this movie, but for the most part it’s an overly simple tale with no strong cinematic flourishes apart from the acting.