Rating: 3.5/5
Chris’ friends call him Wang Wang. Chris likes to film their antics, like putting a dead squirrel in someone’s mailbox and blowing it up. He has a crush on a girl named Maddie. His mother, Chungsing, and his Nǎi Nai take care of him and his older sister, Vivian, who is going to college soon.
In other words, Chris is your typical 13-year-old boy, complete with all the embarrassment, posturing, and bursts of anger. We follow his summer, where his friendships are strained, and he tries his hand at filming skateboarders.
The film falls in a lineage of coming-of-age films from Eighth Grade to Riceboy Sleeps, where the emotions are too big to handle, and not all storylines have happy endings. The movie comes alive at pivotal moments but has trouble maintaining that consistent level of connection with the character. It only suffers in comparison to its predecessors.
Still, this movie hit several emotional beats that resonated. It never felt inauthentic to its characters. I’m happy I saw this in theaters, and I’m looking forward to checking out more from Sean Wang.