Funny, authentic and takes you right back to being 13: Didi reviewed

Didi is a coming-of-age drama by the Taiwanese-American writer-director Sean Wang. It’s set in the summer of 2008 and based on his own adolescence – and here’s the bottom line: it’s an absolute joy. It’s funny, moving, authentic and takes you right back to being 13. (Agh!)

The main character here is Chris (Izaac Wang), who is called ‘Didi’ by his family as that’s the Chinese for ‘little brother’. He is 13, lives in Fremont, California, and is about to start high school. There’s no father in the picture as he’s working back in Taiwan. His flustered, put-upon mother, Chungsing (the magnificent Joan Chen), can’t comprehend her children’s American ways and dispenses the kind of advice that no self-respecting teenager would ever take on board. (‘Eat fruit, it helps your digestive system,’ for example). Chris fights constantly with his older sister, Vivian (Shirley Chen), and if you fought constantly with your older sister when you were growing up here’s a trick you may have missed: have a wee in her body lotion, then replace the cap.