One of the most exhilarating kinds of unions in cinema comes when a fresh, exciting new voice aligns itself with a veteran presence to create a special kind of collaboration. Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟) realises this kind of magic beautifully with his fantastic feature-film directorial debut, casting the legendary actress Joan Chen in the pivotal role of Chungsing Wang, mother to Izaac Wang’s Chris, our titular ‘dìdi’ (‘little brother’ in Mandarin).
Nicknamed ‘Wang Wang’ by his friends, we follow Chris through a formative summer in Fremont, California as he gets into hijinks with his friends Fahad (Raul Dial) and Soup (Aaron Chang), makes YouTube video, argues with his older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen), and navigates the messy world of teenage crushes and social hierarchies. Guiding us through the highs and lows of Dìdi (弟弟) is the seasoned gravitas and knowing air of Joan Chen, who quietly anchors the film in the margins and devastates when she takes centre stage.
When workshopping Dìdi at Sundance Labs, Wang focused on developing the mother and son relationship as a foundational emotional core to the framework of the coming-of-age story. Much like Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, which Wang cites as a great inspiration, Wang finds the pride and shame of growing up tied to memories of his own mother. Using this, Wang developed the shifting tones of the film between a high-octane, adolescent adventure and a quiet, moving portrait of a mother and son story through these experiences.
“It starts off as a movie about friendship and ends as a movie about family,” Wang says, in the film’s production notes. “That was the emotional arc and I thought, ‘Okay, how do we do that?’”
The answer comes in the multifaceted writing behind the character of Chungsing and Chen’s portrayal of her. Dìdi (弟弟) gives Chen what might be the best role of her prolific career, which harnesses every side of her talents to create this rich, multidimensional performance. Switching between Mandarin and English, she disappears into the role of a Taiwanese immigrant mother and imbues every line and scene with the wonderful naturalism she’s displayed on screen from the very start of her career. Even when silent, the camera hones in on her to find such power in every close-up like she did in her extraordinary Hollywood breakout turn as the opium-addicted empress in The Last Emperor.
There’s an added authenticity to Chen’s performance given her real-life experience as an immigrant mother of two children growing up in California with even more richness found when considering her other memorable performances playing a mom.
In Alice Wu’s Saving Face, Chen plays an ostracised divorcée with a child born out of wedlock in an amusing and most heartfelt depiction of growth and acceptance. Her tragic portrayal as director Tony Ayres’ mother in The Home Song Stories mines through an enigmatic mess of emotions, the traumatic past and burdensome present.
Chungsing in Dìdi (弟弟) offers Chen a unique opportunity. From the outset, Chungsing is defined by an overabundance of warmth and love. Chen lends Chungsing such a comforting, empathetic sense of hope amidst the chaos of Chris’ coming-of-age pains as he awkwardly struggles to find his way in a world that doesn’t really seem to have a place for him. Whether it’s gently healing a black eye he got in a fight with a boiled egg, or making fart jokes to cheer him up after an outing with friends gone wrong, Chungsing is always there to lend Chris a comforting shoulder even if he doesn’t appreciate her like he should.
“Everything that [Chris] wants is conditional to him being a version of himself that he isn’t. And his mom is there every step of the way. Every time he fucks up, she’s there. It’s the only relationship in the movie where the love is unconditional,” explains Wang.
When we see Chungsing’s best efforts to love Chris met with flippant disinterest, and even disdain, it hurts precisely because so many of us can connect with this experience on either side. Chen shows how much loving Chris and Vivian strains her. Dealing with a dysfunctional family dynamic and keeping everything together as essentially a single parent, with her husband working abroad and eternally absent from the household. There’s the looming anxiety of Vivian leaving the nest for college, Chris growing distant from her, and her mother-in-law repeatedly denigrating her abilities as a mother and wife while entirely absolving blame from Chungsing’s husband. Chen never shies away from these tensions, and never sugarcoats her portrayal of Chungsing, for as much as she is the loving and endearing mother to provide Chris with comfort through his hardships, she is also someone with frustrations and disappointments, and dreams of her own too.
Notably, Chungsing is an aspiring painter with aspirations of opening a studio, a side plot that Wang develops into some of the most poignant moments of the film. When Chungsing brings one of her paintings to Chris, eagerly anticipating his feedback, he can’t even be bothered to look at it — too lost in his own youthful neuroses and anxieties like many of us were at that age. When she gets a letter of rejection from one of the many competitions she’s entered, the camera lingers on her face of reserved, unsurprised disappointment silently and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. Conversely, when one of Chris’ skater friends shows an appreciation of her artwork hanging up in home, her eyes light up with such excitement, a brief respite of joy before it is so cruelly torn away by Chris shooing her away, brushing her aside as an embarrassment.
These short, yet potent moments, create such a moving arc for Chungsing who is so often undervalued by her family. Wang often frames Chen to the side of the camera while inside the family home, reflecting Chungsing’s pent up emotions and frustrations for the sake of her family. This makes the moments of release — whether it’s her finally lashing out at her mother-in-law for her unfair critiques or almost losing control and almost slapping Chris (which notably, was the first scene Chen shot for the film) — particularly visceral as we see the patient, genial mother pushed to the limit, and at her most vulnerable.
As the film progresses and we feel the cumulative pains of Chris’ growing up and Chungsing’s struggles as a mother, the generational and cultural rift between the two, while still apparent, bridges itself closer as we see their vulnerabilities and struggles overlap. This culminates in the powerful climactic scene of the film where Chris, after a particularly harsh argument with his mother, apologetically asks the morning afterwards if he is an embarrassment to her. Setting the stage for the climactic parent monologue, the staple of many films lately, performed by the likes of Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name), Sterling K. Brown (Waves), Ann Dowd (Mass), Paul Dano (The Fabelmans), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), and Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Chen enters the echelons of these great actors with her beautifully written and delivered heart-to-heart with Chris.
Chungsing describes to her son her experience as a young woman immigrating to America and adapting to a strange new world. Chen has spoken in interviews about how coming to America to start her career was her own coming-of-age story, and that real-life parallel between her and Chungsing adds a particularly strong, authentic emotional resonance to the scene. Chen speaks of trying “to reach across the chasm and with love — that is the only thing that is enough,” and in this particular scene, through Chungsing, Chen reaches out with love so tenderly and powerfully.
Chungsing shares her fears and disappointments with Chris, ruminating over the hypotheticals of a life where without children, she might have moved to New York to start her own art studio and achieved great success. “Sometimes I dream,” she muses, with Chen delivering the line in such a quietly devastating manner; and yet, she cherishes every moment spent with her children and emphasises to Chris that he is her dream, her love, and the one she cherishes every day without regret.
In the final moments of the film, we see Chungsing tenderly gazing with love over her child, her beloved ‘dìdi’, we feel the warm wave of Chris embracing his mother — and in turn Sean Wang’s apology and appreciation to his own mother.
