Dear Gossips,

Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool & Wolverine…

It’s the long-awaited monster movie opening this weekend, will probably be the biggest movie of the year in terms of box office, and it’s the one that will dominate all movie discussions for the next few days, just as it has been for the last few weeks.

There is, however, another movie opening this weekend and it’s just as worthy of your attention. In fact, it might be more worthy of your attention if you care about award season because it is trying to position itself as an underdog contender. Not sure yet if it will generate enough momentum but it certainly has the qualifications: wonderfully written screenplay, beautiful performances, and a breakout director.

Didi won the Audience Award at Sundance back in January and was then acquired by Focus Features. Two months later, director Sean Wang showed up at the Oscars as a nominee with his two grandmothers who became red carpet fashion stars.

Wài Pó is back for Sean’s feature film directorial debut and she pays Nai Nai this time in Didi and she was present, in red of course, at the premiere last night in LA alongside her grandson and the film’s two leads, Izaac Wang and the incomparable Joan Chen.

The Daily Beast calls Didi “the next great coming-of-age film”. It’s very, very, very loosely based on Sean’s own experience growing up around the Bay Area. Izaac plays 13-year-old Chris, confused, horny, trying too hard and not hard enough, and Joan is his mother Chungsing, who’s on her own raising two children and suffering not only the disrespect of their adolescence but also the incessant disrespect coming from her mother-in-law, Nai Nai, who lives with them. Which… if you’re from this culture, you might be familiar with. Heads up to those of you from Chinese backgrounds who will be seeing this film: it is a TRIGGER! The amount of sh-t some of our mothers had to take from their husbands’ mothers is such a generational mindf-ck.

I love Didi for the specificity but also for its big heart, big enough to include everyone. Teenagers being assholes is universal. Mothers trying to connect with them during this period of complicated growth? Universal. Teen boys trying to figure out their place in the world and stumbling all over their own youthful stupidity? It’s a story we all recognise.

So if you don’t want the big movie this weekend, and you’re looking for smaller, quieter, and maybe sweeter alternative? Choose Didi. It’s one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2024, directed by an emerging filmmaker with so much promise.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Joan Chen Gossip

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