In only his second feature, Kogonada has given audiences one of the year's best science fiction films. After Yang follows Jake (Colin Farrell) as he attempts to get the family's artificial sibling, Yang (Justin H. Min), back online. As Jake journeys to repair Yang, he becomes closer with his wife, Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), and daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), revisiting Yang's old memories and witnessing the impact he had on his family and those around him. Many films of late that have tackled the topic of artificial intelligence, such as Ex-Machina, have leaned toward cautionary tales to warn of the dangers of manufacturing consciousness. After Yang is a refreshing take on the A.I. trend in film, as it leans toward the idea that A.I. will bring human beings closer together.

At the start of the film, Jake's family isn't really connected. Jake lies about it being busy at work to seemingly avoid coming back home, possibly due to the shame of stagnating tea business. Additionally, Kyra is a bit of a workaholic, valuing her career more than the time she spends with her family. Jake and Kyra are so distant it seems the only thing really holding them together is their adopted daughter, Mika. While Mika might be the string that still binds the family together, she is more a child of Yang than she is Kyra and Jake. Yang spends the majority of time with her and is effectively the one in charge of raising her. It isn't until Yang goes offline that Jake starts to reassess the status quo and sees the cracks in the family dynamic. With Yang offline, the adhesive glue is gone, and the family is left with more questions than answers. What is unexpected is that rather than these answers leading to the destruction of the family or illustrating the dangers of spyware in A.I., they seem to bring the family closer together than ever before.

Temptations of Prejudice

Jake Watches Yang's Memories
A24

When Jake finds out that any legal effort he makes to repair Yang results in being told that he's unsalvageable, he takes him to a shady repairman, Russ (Ritchie Coster). Russ' bias are clear, as indicated by an American flag decal stating, "ain't no yellow in the red, white, and blue." Russ is a man who is skeptical of further integration with China and, in all likelihood, any other nation, as he suggests to Jake that he should scrap Yang because he contains spyware that is collecting data on his family for the Chinese government. Jake takes the "spyware" to a museum to meet with Cleo (Sarita Choudhury) and access what's been recorded. It turns out Russ' cynicism led to him jumping to the worst possible conclusion, as Cleo tells Jake that it isn't spyware. It's Yang's memories. Russ doesn't see Yang as an individual being. He sees him as a piece of political technology without identity. This is far from reality, as it appears Yang is more human than thought, holding onto specific memories that are important to him.

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If there's any message that After Yang tries to impart, it's that cynicism can blind one to the beauty of life. Russ sits alone in his garage, angry and vengeful, expecting the worst. If Jake were to succumb to this viewpoint, he would have just had Yang scrapped and assumed it was spyware, never visiting his memories and seeing the impact that Yang had on the world and his own family.

A Relationship

After Yang
A24

While exploring Yang's memories, Jake sees that a woman plays a prominent role in his life both before and during his time as Mika's artificial sibling. Jake decides to track Ada (Haley Lu Richardson) down and discovers that she's a clone of her great aunt, who was the daughter of Yang's previous owner. Prior to this meeting, Jake is slightly adverse to clones, not wanting to spend time with his neighbor, George (Clifton Collins Jr.), who has clone daughters. This changes for Jake after meeting Ada, as she begins to tag along with the family as they endeavor to fix Yang. It's not important whether Ada is a clone because she's connected to Yang no matter what. Yang went out of his way to search for Ada and rekindle their relationship. He missed her great-aunt and, in a way, didn't see Ada as a clone but as a being that he loved. Yang didn't distinguish between the two. They were the same.

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Near the end of the film, Kyra recounts a memory of Yang where they discussed the meaning of life. Kyra asks Yang whether it makes him sad that there's nothing after this life. After contemplating for a moment, Yang states that there's not something without nothing, that the fact there may be nothing in the afterlife is what makes the now so special. The thought that there might not be an afterlife, and he may never see Ada again, was heartbreaking to Yang, leading to him trying to recapture that love he felt under the fear he never could again. One can wonder if this led Yang to seek out Ada's clone. It's scenes like this in After Yang that illustrate there's very little that's different from Yang and any other human being.

Unified Future

Yang's Family Photo
A24

One of the more beautiful moments in After Yang is when Mika tells Yang that kids at her school have been bullying her and saying that her parents are not really her parents. Yang decides to take Mika on a walk through the trees to show her how different trees graft together to create something new. The trees might have come from different places but have become one singular thing, and the uniqueness of that is what makes it special. Mika isn't one thing or another. She's her own. Her Chinese culture is just as important as her family culture is, making her special. One could see this as a metaphor for the future of the human race. With greater integration in connectivity between people, humanity is drifting away from being one thing or another but becoming one single tree. On the other side of the coin, this is a metaphor for the future of A.I. While manufactured intelligence may appear different at first, it'll come to join with humanity to the point where A.I. and humans are almost indistinguishable and crucial in the development of one another. Humanity and A.I. will fuse together just as Yang does with his adopted family.

After Yang is a poetic meditation on the wholeness of the world. There's a point in the film where Yang asks Jake why he loves tea. Jake confesses that he likes it because, in a way, you can taste the world in it, from the rain coming down to the footsteps of people atop it. Jake is searching for this interconnectedness, a feeling that he's one with the universe. What makes Yang human, in the end, is that he is on the same quest, whether it be with his family or Ida. While he may have been initially an artificial sibling to serve a purpose, he found himself seeking his own purpose in an effort to become connected with what it means to be alive. It's a beautiful idea that what man creates doesn't have to reflect the sinister side of man, but the part yearning for a shared connection. If this is what A.I. comes to reflect, just as Yang brings Jake's family closer, it'll bring humanity closer so that it may birth something new and unique.