Sean Wang’s “Didi” has been acquired by Focus Features who will give it a much-deserved theatrical release later this year. No word on how much Focus had to fork out to nab the film.
I watched around 20 films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and “Didi” was definitely one of only a handful of films I’d consider to be above average. Hopefully, I’ll write about one of the other titles, Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain,” in the coming days.
“Didi” took home the coveted Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic category and a special Jury Award for Best Ensemble. This was another worthy winner, and one of the better films of this year’s competition, a brief shout out to “Between the Temples” and “Good One” as well.
Set in 2008, during the last month of summer, before high school begins, “Didi” tackles an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy who learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to navigate the most turbulent time in a boy’s life.
It’s a sweet, real and incredibly resonant film — think Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade.” If you loved that one then you’ll be taken by “Didi.” It’s not a gamechanger by any means, but it’s the kind of discovery that makes Sundance such an essential festival.
More Sundance news. I was one of the 160 “critics” who participated in IndieWire’s annual poll of the festival. Here are the results, which do give a good overview of this year’s festival. I saw 7 of the films in the top 10 (sadly, missed out on “I Saw the TV Glow,” “Love Lies Bleeding” and “A Different Man”).
1. “A Real Pain”
2. “I Saw the TV Glow”
3. “Good One”
4. “Didi (弟弟)”
5. “Between the Temples”
6. “Love Lies Bleeding”
7. “Thelma”
8. “Exhibiting Forgiveness”
9. “A Different Man”
10. “Girls Will Be Girls”