Hi, I’m Eliza Janssen, the assistant editor here at Flicks. Here’s why I love Kogonada’s sci-fi family drama After Yang.
1. I was moved by the director’s last movie Columbus. And he’s using similar camera techniques here to show you the subtle magic in architecture and domestic spaces, even empty rooms without any of the main characters to focus upon.
2. Look at how this living room is framed! Gorgeous.
3. Colin Farrell plays a displaced suburban dad, and Kogonada let him play the role in highly sexy Farrell mode, all stubble and six-pack. Mmm.
4. Jodi Turner-Smith puts in a more elegant performance as the mother of a family slowly realising that their robot nanny was keeping daily life together. When he breaks, they’re more lost than they ever realized.
5. The movie starts with a cracking dance sequence, showing the whole cast performing some social-media instigated ‘family dance’.
6. (Honestly I’m bummed it doesn’t show up a second time in the film, considering how goofy and thrilling it is to bop along to.)
7. We never get to meet the AI helper Yang during his life—only seeing soulful memories from the family’s perspective. It’s a uniquely mournful viewing experience.
8. Later, we find out that Yang had a secret romantic relationship with a young clone, played by Haley Lu Richardson. It brings up questions of personhood: can a manufactured being feel romance? Can they acutely know their history or purpose?
9. The film shows a fairly hopeful future where westerners live in a state of Asian-inspired, peaceful zen. It’s beautifully rendered, but it also brings the character’s dissatisfaction into sharper relief.
10. Questions of race are raised but not explained. We see racist anti-Asian hate in a worker’s room, and instinctively understand how our mixed main family has come together—it’s realistic, relaxed, and mostly utopian.
11. I love that the movie reminds me of Her: another hopeful, heartfelt sci-fi story about squishy vulnerable humans living in a technologically advanced age.
12. After Yang completely embodies the feeling of grief: of sudden absence, realising that you’ll never be able to progress your understanding of that missing person in your life while you have the privilege of knowing them.
13. I also adore those self-driving cars. I’m highly skeptical of Tesla, but if they put out any vehicles with these wooden details and plant beds, sign me TF up.
After Yang
Streaming Now
