Review: Moving yet meticulous ‘After Yang’ is a film about a robot that unfolds with the cold precision of one
In the haunting but ultimately inert domestic drama “After Yang,” Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith play Jake and Kyra, a couple living in an indeterminate place and time in the not-too-distant future. They adopted their daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) from China and, following the tacit custom of their culture and era, they’ve added another member to their family: Yang (Justin H. Min), an even-tempered android who’s not only an ideal big brother, but imparts to Mika the cultural knowledge and sense of identity her busy but hypersensitive parents feel they cannot.
Adapted by the film essayist Kogonada from a story by Alexander Weinstein, “After Yang” chronicles a period in the family’s life when a malfunction in Yang’s operating system sends relationships into turmoil and Jake particularly into a swivet of mounting anxiety. Technology has become so sophisticated that it feels inhuman simply to junk the surrogate sibling and upgrade to a newer model; when Jake begins to seek alternatives, he discovers that Yang himself was on a similar search – for connection, meaning and his own version of what it means to become fully human.
Fans of “Columbus,” Kogonada’s 2017 feature debut, will recognize his distinctive style in “After Yang,” which reflects the filmmaker’s all-encompassing attention to detail, meditative tone and preference for slow, deliberate pacing. Like the earlier film, this one pays close attention to the spaces the characters inhabit, whether it’s Jake and Kyra’s serene, sleekly uncluttered home (they put a premium on calm) or the car Jake drives taking Yang on his posthumous journey from repair shop to a museum where a curator played by Sarita Choudhury is eager to put the highly evolved bot on display.
Meanwhile, Jake, who owns a bespoke tea shop, is forced to contend with the messy emotions and unwieldy philosophical questions his highly ritualized existence has been contoured neatly to avoid. The outlines of “After Yang” are undoubtedly intriguing, conjuring comparisons to thoughtful recent science-fiction films such as “Ex Machina” and “Her.” But Kogonada’s self-conscious style begins to work against the material, with his precisionist aesthetic looking increasingly mannered, the actors’ affectless characterizations lending the proceedings a numb, distanced quality.
By design, it turns out that Yang is the most relatable character in an otherwise chilly chamber piece. Min plays him with just the right balance of attenuation and yearning. As “After Yang” delves into the memories that he’s collected – and that make him a collector’s item in his own right – the result is moving, but the surrounding movie still feels like it’s unfolding at an empyrean, and frankly rather dull, remove. “After Yang” again demonstrates Kogonada’s mastery of form, framing and composition. But audiences will be forgiven for wanting to reach through the screen to mess it up a little, if only to inject warmth and spontaneity.