Jake (Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) purchased Yang (Justin H. Min), a “technosapien” AI to help raise their adopted daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), and teach her about her Chinese heritage.  One day, Yang malfunctions and shuts down.  Jake struggles to get him back online but as he is an older model, few techs will do what is required and the family needs to grapple with the idea that they may lose Yang permanently. 

After Yang, released by A24, is a near-future sci-fi drama written and directed by Kogonada.  The film has a heavy, melancholic tone throughout which is common in films set in the not-so-distant future – Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) comes to mind.  Alexandra Schaller is the production designer and Benjamin Loeb’s cinematography creates a very unique idea of the world to come that works perfectly with the so focused on memory and mourning. 

Kogonada opens the film with a boldly styled and colored title sequence that finds Yang and his family participating in a massive dance competition with other families.  It is just one of the many elements that adds texture to the world of the film without ever going into a deep examination of what or why it exists because it does not need to do so.  Kogonada’s vision of the future is so clearly conveyed through the film’s design that we can accept it all at first glance and move on.  He can do this because so much of his world that seems “strange” is just a hyper extension of where we are currently at in society today.  These competitions can be seen as an extension of the viral TikTok dance challenges, the self-driving cars are already technology that industry pioneers have been flirting with, and the design which incorporates elements from nature can be seen as the next logical step forward in establishing “green spaces” in urban environments.  What is most notable, however, is that Kogonada does not treat Yang exclusively as damning evidence of hands-off parents who rely on a screen to rear their children, but rather accepts that technology has become an interwoven part of our lives and builds a tender narrative out of that. 

The horror version of After Yang is always looming right under the surface.  For as long as AI has been around, the idea of them taking over the human race has always been explored in stories, and then there is surveillance element which plays a key factor in After Yang.  2022 has seen an increase in the way that AI focused stories are told, Kimi for instance uses AI to solve a crime, and here as Jake combs through the memory files of Yang, not only does he begin to embark on a mystery of his own, but his life is recontextualized to bring a greater emphasis to his family.  So often the argument is made that life behind a screen is dismantling society because people are interfacing digitally instead of physically but here, Kogonada accepts that element of total reliance on technology is bad, but he also knows that the same technology can be used purposefully to bring us closer together, too. 

As the film unfolds, it does change gears to focus on the mystery of Yang’s past and a woman, Ada (Haley Lu Richardson) who often shows up in the files of memory retrieved from Yang.  On one hand, it is a nice story by itself and in its own right, but within the greater context of the film, Ada drives attention away from the family drama that captured our attention in the first act.  The script seems to struggle under the weight of two narratives which makes for a bumpy middle act, but the emotional beats within each story still land and that is where After Yang truly excels.   

Kogonada’s intimate glimpse of the world as it might be makes us take a look at our own lives and take stock in the little things that make our lives so rich with emotion.  The relationships we have with our family, friends, and neighbors, and the things they do that we may not take note of until they are gone is the biggest take away from this story about a man and his malfunctioning android.  It is the little things that people do, and that we do, to show our love.  The strongest emotions are oftentimes conveyed through the simplest of gestures, and After Yang makes a great case for us to take that step back from our busy schedules and appreciate what we have – who we have – and take that extra moment to say “I love you” before it is too late.