2 films to celebrate turning 2

🔥 Dìdi and Sing Sing 🔥

Sep 17, 2024

WE’RE 2!! 🎈

Monday Marvels originated as a WhatsApp group with family and friends during lockdown, to share recommendations and keep each other entertained.

Two years ago it migrated to Substack, and has since grown into a lil community of 200+ people, from across the UK and beyond (even as far as NZ 💓).

In an age of what can feel like relentless content, this aims to be a place where we collectively pan for gold. It brings me a lot of joy to run this, so thank you very much for being part of it 😘

In celebration of being two, here are two amazing films I’ve watched recently that I want to tell you about (both in UK cinemas now).

Dìdi

This is a coming-of-age comedy drama and a directorial debut from Sean Wang. It’s about 13-year-old Chris (affectionately called Dìdi, meaning younger brother, by his family), a Taiwanese-American teenager growing up in California. It’s 2008, and Chris is hanging out with his best friends Fahad and Soup, skateboarding, making stupid videos to upload on YouTube and navigating early social media.

Sean Wang is a year older than me, and I realised part of the joy of watching Dìdi is that I’ve never really seen a coming-of-age film that’s set at the exact time that I was coming of age. It explores that strange, early internet era, where relationships and friendships were being formed online for the very first time. Despite it being set in America, there are so many similarities, like endless ‘your Mum’ jokes, Motorola flip phones and that RIOT! Paramore t-shirt that everyone used to own. There were also so many things in the film that I’d forgotten about early social media, like the SmarterChild chatbot on MSN and moving your friends to the bottom of your MySpace ‘top friends’ after a fight, that made me lol out loud.

The film is never in your face, but subtly addresses big topics, like trying to fit in as the child of immigrant parents and doing whatever it takes to be liked. Some of my favourite scenes are the scenes with Dìdi’s family, especially his hilarious Grandma (Nai Nai), played by Sean Wang’s real Grandmother. (Fun fact — she also featured in his 2023 short documentary Nai Nai & Wài Pó, about his two grandmothers who live together in their home in Fremont, California, that was nominated for an Oscar earlier this year). All in all a beautiful, funny film that is a must watch for anyone in their late 20s/early 30s.

Sing Sing

Another stunning film. Sing Sing is a new release from A24, that tells the story of a theatre programme at a New York State prison. It’s based on the real life Rehabilitation Through the Arts programme at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison and stars a cast of mostly formerly incarcerated alumni.

We see dehumanising cell searches, security checks and parole interviews, but this isn’t Shawshank Redemption or your usual prison-based drama. Sing Sing instead focuses almost entirely on the theatre programme, in the run-up to a new production (a time-travelling musical featuring pirates, gladiators and Hamlet - why not). Most scenes take place inside the rehearsal room, that becomes a space for escape and healing for the film’s main characters.

The story follows the unlikely friendship between John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield (Colman Domingo) and Clarence ‘Divine Eye’ Maclin (himself). Divine G is a leader and a driving force of the programme. When not performing, he can be found writing plays, running lines with his friend Mike Mike through their cell walls, or helping other prisoners prep for their parole interviews. Divine Eye is a tough ‘pitbull’ of a guy, a prison drug dealer who we first meet threatening a fellow inmate. But he has a passion for Shakespeare, teasing at something softer beneath the veneer. Throughout the film, both men find power in vulnerability and help each other hang onto hope.

It’s beautifully filmed, shot on 16mm film and often using a handheld camera, giving it a documentary-like quality, which feels right given the film floats between reality and fiction. At the end of the film, we see real-life footage from performances at Sing Sing, including many of the actors who have since been released and gone on to play themselves in the film.

Very good. You should watch it.

I’m going to be switching up the format of Monday Marvels in the month’s ahead, adding more in-depth reviews and stories from behind the scenes of films and shows we know and love, as well as the usual monthly round-ups. I’m also going to be focusing more on film and TV as I’m finding I’m increasingly becoming a creature of habit podcast wise and am a slow reader. But keep your book and podcast recommendations coming, I always love to hear what you’re enjoying.

Have a great week lovelies 🤍