In her first documentary Hooligan Sparrow, Chinese filmmaker Nanfu Wang focused on a scrappy women's rights activist who sought to speak truth to power in China. In this unusual documentary Wang has moved to New York City. Seeking adventure, she purchases a one-way ticket to Florida. There she meets and becomes fascinated with Dylan Olsen, a 22-year-old homeless drifter who tells her he relishes each day and the variety of people he meets in his travels all over the country.

Wang notes that this young man with a winning smile has adopted a lifestyle that goes against the grain of tradition: she says her family in China would be shocked with "the idea that someone would choose to be homeless." Wang decides to join Dylan on the road and see what his life is really like. At first, the filmmaker enjoys the ways in which Dylan is able to enjoy the freedom, which he has identified as the hub of his days and deeds.

Of course, there is a long and admirable list of drifters, drop-outs, and outsiders who have a yen for the open road and almost no hankering for security, community, or consumerism. Dylan was raised in Utah and has a very negative view of Mormonism and its puritanical ideals and judgmental theology. Wang is not too pleased when she learns that this cool hipster was a heroin addict from ages 14 to 20. Eventually, she decides that she can't be with him on the road any longer.

The mood shifts in I Am Another You when Wang and Dylan encounter each other in Utah years later. In the meantime, she has contacted his father, a detective, who has a love/hate relationship with his son. She learns that Dylan has long suffered from mental illness, which has been a painful experience for the whole family.

At his father's wedding, Dylan and Wang try to pick up where they left off. But now she has much more information on his situation, and he talks openly about what he feels and the voices he hears. He is now enmeshed with a girlfriend. We find ourselves worrying about how he can possibly cope in the world as his drifter lifestyle takes its toll.

Wang has now directed two very creative and affecting documentaries, and we look forward to her next work.