after Yang

If there were an Academy Award for ‘Best Opening Sequence,’ Kogonada’s After Yang would win it handily.  Unfortunately, the film continues for another 90 minutes and never quite manages to recapture the charm of that sequence or to live up to its promise.  If this sounds unduly harsh, it’s because I have a soft spot for sci-fi films that tackle big ideas, especially the films that have a noir-ish undercurrent.  Indeed, over the course of its slight, yet somehow still interminable, runtime, the film tips its hat to several tropes frequently found in science fiction, primarily artificial intelligence, and cloning.  These ideas prove too weighty for the film, which ultimately is let down by its underwriting and underacting (under-directing?).

Jake (an inscrutable Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith, doing her best to inject warmth into the proceedings) live in a futuristic society with their adopted daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) and their robotic ‘son’ Yang (a delightful Justin H. Min). Yang is a high-tech au pair, having been chosen by Jake and Kyra to help Mika stay in touch with her heritage. (Yang’s predilection for dispensing ‘Chinese fun facts’ is a minor, recurring pleasure throughout the film.)  In the film’s dynamite intro, the family faces the camera, wearing matching jumpsuits and performing synchronized dances as part of an immersive ‘Dance Dance Revolution’-type video game.  The cleverness of this sequence cannot be understated; it’s visually arresting, as the color scheme shifts in time with the music, and the scene also cuts between other families who are playing the same game, each of which is anchored by another main character—Russ (Ritchie Coster), Ada (Haley Lu Richardson), Cleo (Sarita Choudhury), and George (Clifton Collins, Jr., always delightful). This is the last time we see the central family unit intact, however, as Yang immediately malfunctions, an event which drives the rest of the film’s plot. Jake sets off on a quest to fix Yang, and he and the family begin to grapple with loss and grief, all the while learning more about who Yang really was.

If this sounds like a terrific hook for a film, you’d be right. Unfortunately, the end result is a film that feels a bit half-baked.  Multiple subplots are hinted at but never fleshed out, character motivations are murky at best, and the heady themes aren’t given enough room to breathe. The missteps are largely due to the underwhelming writing and acting.  Cinema is full of examples of actors who are able to overcome the limitations of the script (intentional or not) and are able to add a third dimension that’s not present on the page—see Bradley Cooper in Nightmare Alley and Ryan Gosling in…pretty much any of his films, for two recent examples.  This film is no exception. Turner-Smith, Choudhury, Collins, Jr., and even Min as the titular robot all leave you wanting to know more about their characters.  Where did they come from? What are they doing when they’re not on screen? And most importantly, what are their motivations? Unfortunately, none of that is evident in the film.  Despite the many fine actors, the primary failure here is Colin Farrell.  He’s a terrific actor, and I’ve loved his late-career renaissance (The Lobster, The Batman, and on and on).  However, to say that his performance here is a cipher would be an understatement.  I question whether he was poorly directed, or if he had a difficult time connecting with the material, but he barely shows any emotion throughout the film. Given that he commands much of the screen time, this makes the A plot a bit of a chore.

The B plots are a bit more successful, if only because they’re anchored by the supporting cast.  Jake is forced to choose between Russ and Cleo in his quest to fix Yang, and the contrast between the two characters (and their questionable motives) provides some fun. Mostly, learning more about Yang proves to be the film’s most consistent delight.  We learn that he had a separate life unbeknownst to the family, and that he was grappling with questions of identity and autonomy and even…love.  Yang also brings out the best in the other characters, and Jake and Kyra’s strongest scenes are with him.  Yet, as with the rest of the film, his scenes with the family only raise more questions.

There are some films in which obfuscation can feel intentional, wherein the viewer gets the sense that they are in the hands of a master storyteller.  In those films, it’s easy to sit back and trust that the story will unfold in a manner that rewards patience—see Christopher Nolan’s Following and Memento, or any of David Lynch’s films.  After Yang is not one of those.  Here, you get the sense that the misdirection is unintentional, that the director didn’t have a firm enough grasp of the material.  I found myself frequently confused.  Why is Jake so motivated to fix Yang? At one point, the two have a moving discussion in the kitchen that hints at…something between the two of them that’s never quite fleshed out. Similarly, the dynamic between Jake and Kyra is underdeveloped and unsatisfying—there’s tension between the two that’s never fully explained.

As for the direction, it’s mostly competent though occasionally falters.  The futuristic set design is minimalist, with clean, sharp lines, often imbued with warmth by natural, ambient light.  You’ll spend a considerable amount of time riding with Jake in his car, which is evocative of the magnetic rail cars seen in Minority Report (incidentally, a far better Colin Farrell film). However, in these sequences, the camera is so stolidly fixed on Jake that you find yourself feeling claustrophobic and wanting to see something, anything, outside of the vehicle.  It’s also hard not to think of Drive My Car during these scenes, a film which imbues its driving sequences with quiet grace. The film itself has a dream-like quality, with warm colors that evoke the sense of a memory.  To this end, certain flashback scenes feature overlapping dialogue, in which lines are half-repeated.  While I intellectually appreciated the acknowledgement that memories and dreams aren’t always linear, this trope very quickly felt gimmicky and overused.

In all, this is a tough film to recommend.  It’s an easy movie to root for, with its strong cast and the interesting ideas it tackles—what it means to be human, how people cope with loss and grief, and so on.  The film is let down, however, by anemic writing, questionable acting choices, and subplots and themes that are never fully given room to breathe. The end result is that this feels more like a proof of concept than a finished film. There is enough promise here though that I would be very interested to see what Kogonada does next. In the meantime, look up After Yang’s opening sequence on YouTube and pretend that it’s the start of a much, much better film.