Rating: PG | Runtime: 96 minutes
Release Date: March 4th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: A24
Director(s): Kogonada
Writer(s): Kogonada / Alexander Weinstein (short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang”)

There is no something without nothing.

When technobeing Yang (Justin H. Min) malfunctions, all Jake (Colin Farrell) is thinking about is having him fixed. Like an appliance. A thing. It doesn’t matter that he’s been a part of the family since he and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) adopted Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). In his mind, Yang is a computer to be bought, sold, repaired, and recycled. But his sudden absence reveals something else: the fact that he’s also been a crutch. Yes, Yang was teaching Mika about Chinese culture and understanding her roots, but he was also her babysitter. He allowed Jake and Kyra to work. To postpone. To forget. Suddenly Mika is alone and Jake’s need to compensate feels like a burden. Technology, while useful, has disconnected him from his life.

Kogonada’s After Yang (adapted from Alexander Weinstein’s short sci-fi story “Saying Goodbye to Yang”) is thus about second chances. Because while Jake has retreated from those he loves, Yang has inexplicably found love. The journey to bring this android back online leads Jake to a world not unlike his own (a tea seller who specializes in authentic brews much to the chagrin of customers merely seeking a quick crystalline fix). In it exists conspiracy theorists, corporate capitalist overreach, and preservationists. The future has arrived so fast that the past and present are sacrificed for its quest towards progress—so much so that it also forgets to acknowledge what that progress delivers along the way.

Namely that Yang, despite being synthetic, has the capacity for love. And not just the programmed directive of caring for his “family,” but also those outside it. Jake stumbles onto this potential by finding what’s believed to be spyware hidden behind threats of voided warranties. The reality, however, is that the recordings aren’t exactly an invasive breach of privacy, but a uniquely curated library of moments Yang himself chose to save. We’re talking an artificial memory bank of tiny, seemingly innocuous sequences, that reveal a humanistic sense of wonder for the beauty of life’s mundane brilliance. And while they help Jake comprehend the identity Yang built beyond manufactured parameters, they also help him remember his own—and the truth that he’s begun to let it slip away.

This is as much an adventure through Yang’s history as it is through Jake’s. These memories trigger his own. They show him what he’s started to take for granted and what Yang provided as a “son” as much as a utility. It’s an inspirational and often heartbreaking discovery asking us to think about what it means to be alive and whether the definition changes for AI or clones. Where are the lines? Should there be any when it comes to consciousness? Are emotions enough to transcend infrastructure and origins? Farrell is quite wonderful in a role that demands an introspective acknowledgement of these questions and a decision for how to move forward. It’s an evolution. A metamorphosis. Jake believes himself a butterfly already, yet his cocoon has just started to form.

After Yang is gorgeously shot by Benjamin Loeb (anyone who knows Kogonada’s beginnings in online cinematography supercuts knew it would be) with as much levity (what a great opening credits dance competition) as pathos. And by making Yang’s memories consist of seconds-long clips rather than full scenes, we’re able to travel through an ephemeral landscape of touchstones that move beyond dialogue or action to the unexplainable. Just as Jake describes with tea (via a fantastic Werner Herzog impression), we sometimes don’t have the language to describe beauty. Sometimes it’s the experience of specific moments. The light. The sound. The serenity. Yang’s “mind” shows us that second-hand knowledge is overrated. To live it is everything.

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Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja and Justin H. Min in Kogonada’s AFTER YANG.