DIDI (no distrib): Sean Wang’s endearing memory piece won the US Dramatic Competition Audience Award. It’s set in 2008 Northern California during the summer before Chris (Izaac Wang) begins high school and his sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) leaves for college in San Diego. The kids have essentially been raised by Chungsing (Joan Chen) as a single mother, since their dad spends long periods working in Taiwan to support the family. (Despite those demands, she still nurses her dreams of becoming an artist.) Their disapproving paternal grandmother Nai-Nai (played by Sean Wang’s real-life grandmother Chang Li Mua) lives with them too. The strength of Didi is in its specificity, both in terms of its period details (this was the moment when MySpace gave way to Facebook as the favored channel for social media, and people manually typed out their emojis), and the way it captures the adolescent’s ability to be an raw nerve when it comes to their own emotions, while being an inconsiderate clod about everyone else’s. Chris is alternately insufferable and painfully shy, and even though the relationships within the family run the risk of recalling Fresh Off the Boat (especially in the early scenes between Chungsing and Nai-Nai), when Didi offers moments of emotion, they’re convincing. Wang has gotten marvelous performances from the mostly young cast, who look and sound like actual high school students, instead of their network TV equivalents. The script manages to be very funny without turning its characters into caricatures, and Didi feels loose without being protracted or chaotic (the editor is Arielle Zakowski). Within the wide universe of movie memoirs about growing up, Didi‘s authenticity lifts it above the norm.
BETWEEN THE TEMPLES (no distrib): Nathan Silver’s oddball comedy (co-written with C. Mason Wells) seems to lose control of its tone. In upstate New York, synagogue cantor Ben (Jason Schwartzman) is still overcome by the sudden death of his wife a year ago, and is unable to sing the prayers at services. Ben’s mothers (Caroline Aaron and–in a surprisingly effective piece of unexpected casting–Triangle of Sadness‘s Dolly De Leon) are certain that what Ben needs is a new woman in his life, and they set him up on dates he doesn’t want and can’t handle. But when the rabbi’s daughter Gabby (Madeline Weinstein) comes back to town, and she’s both attractive and attracted to Ben, all parties (the rabbi is played by veteran comedy writer Robert Smigel) seem to agree that the path forward is clear. Ben, however, has recently re-encountered his childhood music teacher Carla (Carol Kane), who’s decided despite her advanced age (and questionable Judaism) that she wants to be bat-mitzvahed. Ben takes on her training, initially with reluctance, but then feeling an increasing attachment. All of this is amusing for a while. It’s nice to see Schartzman in a role that calls for earnestness rather than sarcasm, and Kane, who can be a lot, is toned down and appealing. Silver, though, favors too much of a good thing, and the scenes between the two, some of which seem to be improvised, go on and on. The question of which woman Ben will choose culminates in a Shabbat dinner scene shot and edited as 10 straight minutes of assaultive close-ups that become a cringe-a-thon. By then, the charm has pretty much drained out of Between the Temples, which doesn’t fully work in the end as either romance or comedy.
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