DIRECTOR: Kogonada
CAST: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Haley Lu Richardson, Ritchie Coster, Sarita Choudhury, Clifton Collins Jr., Deborah Hedwall
RUNNING TIME: 96 mins
CERTIFICATE: PG
BASICALLY…: A family struggles to cope when their robotic companion unexpectedly malfunctions…
NOW FOR THE REVIEW…
Filmmaker and former video essayist “Kogonada” (a pseudonym; his real identity remains unknown), born in South Korea before moving to the States, seems to identify significantly with outsiders. His debut feature, the understated drama Columbus, explored an unusual dynamic where two souls – both, in their own way, strangers in unfamiliar environments – shared a common anxiety of not being where they’re really supposed to be. Now, with his follow-up feature After Yang, Kogonada applies similar concepts to a low-key tale of grief, family, and humanity – only this one has a lot more androids and clones wandering about.
Kogonada’s sci-fi sophomore outing is, like his previous film, one that indulges in muted and often beautiful ponderings on life and what it is to be human (though, in this case, that concept is quite literal). It centres on a family in an undisclosed futuristic society, where self-driving cars, fanciful postmodern buildings, and beings such as androids and clones exist as everyday conveniences. Husband Jake (Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) have adopted a young Chinese girl named Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), as well as an artificially intelligent “techno-sapien” companion called Yang (Justin H. Min), who is programmed to help Mika understand and connect with her Chinese heritage. The four of them are a close family unit, until the day that Yang suddenly becomes unresponsive, sending Jake on an all but futile mission to get him working again for his daughter’s sake. However, when he discovers a box of memories within Yang’s programming, Jake slowly discovers a plentiful, and even bittersweet, life that Yang once lived, before the family purchased him from a second-hand store.
Whilst it is based on Alexander Weinstein’s short story Saying Goodbye to Yang, Kogonada’s film mostly resists leaning into the heavy Philip K. Dick levels of sci-fi storytelling that a much more studio-centric adaptation would undoubtedly have done. You certainly get a taste of this futuristic society throughout, with frequent mentions of an overarching company that exclusively makes android companions like Yang, regular visits to a museum dedicated to exhibiting their biological and technical capacities, and communication devices that are shown through a creative use of aspect framing (there is even some slight social commentary with clones being subject to racial bias and discrimination, even by our diverse central family). Kogonada, however, is much more interested in digging beneath the surface, and exploring the emotional fallout of losing a robot companion, akin to how a family might react to saying goodbye to a beloved pet animal. In this regard, the payoff is undoubtedly heart-wrenching at times, especially as Farrell (who, like his fellow actors here, gives a very grounded and muted performance) dives further and further into the mind – again, literally – of a companion that he and his family perhaps took more for granted than they convinced themselves.
The film is ponderous in its nature, and with some quietly moody cinematography and intentionally disjointed editing (the latter being undertaken by Kogonada himself), it creates a smooth dramatic tone that, for some, might go a bit too much into syrupy territory, but when it’s steered in the right direction, it manages to land some surprisingly captivating gut-punches. In a similar vein to Spike Jonze’s Her, Kogonada places heavy emphasis on the deeply emotional aspects of leaving behind a close member of a household, while also allowing the viewer to piece together enough of the given pieces to glimpse at a filmic future that doesn’t seem that far off from where we are now (this is especially prominent in the opening credits sequence, a borderline bizarre montage of families dancing in sync to music and moves that could genuinely pass as a present-day TikTok trend).
At times, it can be beautiful, melancholic, and subtly investing; at others, you may find yourself asking more and more questions about how this particular society is supposed to function. Either way, you’re along for the ride in ways that you might not expect, whether it’s the quiet and contemplative filmmaking that Kogonada employs to his low-key but still emotional storytelling, or the themes of adapting to one’s surroundings and then later looking back on the lives you once lived elsewhere in the world. Those hoping for an intricate structure, though, may find themselves losing patience with its slow-burn style that eventually fizzles out just before the end credits abruptly start rolling, but for anyone who wants to get emotionally caught up in a tender and sweet-natured lo-fi sci-fi story of families learning from their robot companion what it is to be human, then this is a rare treat that is, unlike its tragic titular character, hardly likely to malfunction,.
SO, TO SUM UP…
After Yang is a tender and emotionally investing low-key sci-fi tale that prefers to explore its ponderous themes of grief and humanity rather than exploring its own futuristic world, which results in some occasionally gut-wrenching moments but also a bit to be desired for any massive lovers of overwhelmingly sci-fi lore.
