Thru The Wire
2024 · 10m · Vietnam
Directed by Bocau
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A socially awkward Vietnamese teenager finally meets her online best friend IRL, and the algorithm of their friendship doesn't quite render in three dimensions. A coming-of-age built out of group chats and disappointment.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Finally — a teen-internet movie that isn't smug American kids in suburban bedrooms. Vietnamese specificity plus the eternal humiliation of meeting your DMs in person.
Vietnamese teen-internet aesthetic colliding with the ache of meeting your URL bestie IRL is a specific and underrepresented register, and Bocau works it with what sounds like real attention. Eighth Grade by way of Hanoi is a promising frame.
URL-to-IRL bestie meet with online-game subculture rendered in a Vietnamese suburb is a fresh axis for the digital-native coming-of-age — Vietnamese teen-internet aesthetic is undercovered territory. The "fried_fish_ball" handle detail tells me the writer's been listening.
Reviews
A stylistically upbeat film where the internet is central to the young character's coming-of-age