“Such a Human Thing to Ask”: The Social Relevance of After Yang

If you watch After Yang (2022) now, you can’t help but notice what a difference two years can make in your response to it. Directed by Kogonada and starring Colin Farrell, the film, a SF-tinged family drama, speculates about AI, which, like so many tech fetishes, had an irresistible appeal based on its promise.

But this year, it’s time for AI to deliver, and it simply has failed to do so. Outside of the usual Silicon Valley hype cycle, AI is a non-starter. Unless you think it’s breaking news that mediocre students can more easily and comfortably maintain their mediocrity. Or, that venture capitalists continue to shoot it into their veins, even while the high is rapidly wearing off.

The cost of AI – well, that’s hard to determine precisely, but one thing’s for sure: its massive energy/water demands are shifting into overdrive the destructiveness of climate change. Arguably, the failed returns on AI are second only to crypto, which spectacularly busted all the suckers at the table, and tarnished the reputations of its shills, such as Matt Damon and Larry David.

In 2024, After Yang loses the benefit of a more optimistic perspective of AI. The film now comes across as perhaps even more thematically top heavy than when A.A. Dowd, after its Sundance screening, wrote that “it’s a film about memory and identity that keeps essentially announcing that it’s about memory and identity.” An additional problem accrued by the film is that its reflective position on AI feels less substantial: it’s kind of like meditating on the cultural significance of the hula hoop.

But the striking visuals of After Yang not only endure; they hit harder. A sunset, filmed through a metal latticework, is an uncanny comment on what most of us, working round the clock to survive, see, if we ever have the chance to look outside of our immediate surroundings. The light, airy spaces in the film make it appear as if dysfunction hides in plain sight, seen mainly from the perspective of Jake (Farrell) whose marriage to Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) seems stable enough. But Jake becomes barely able to conceal his anxiety when Yang (Justin H. Min), the android brother/acclimation aide, to Mika, their adopted Chinese daughter, suddenly goes kaput. Locked into an intense work schedule, Kyra can offer, at best, a distanced support – hoping that Jake can step up his game.

After Yang could’ve mined this scenario for laughs, like family members bickering over a faulty automatic dishwasher, slipping and sliding on a suds-upped kitchen floor. Instead, the film immerses us in melancholy, reminding us of the affection we have for even the most mundane household gadgets.

For instance, a founding member of the company that makes Roombas said,

In the beginning of Roomba, we all took turns answering the support line. Once, a woman called and explained that her robot had a defective motor. I said, ‘Send it back. We’ll send you a new one.’ She said, ‘No, I’m not sending you Rosie.’

For Yang, a cherished family member, the problem, however, is not as simple as a “defective motor.” Something’s gone wrong in his neural circuitry, a tech black box that cannot easily be opened, much less repaired. Jake’s trips to off-the-grid shops fuel his buyer’s remorse, for he suspects that Yang, a refurbished model, might have had hidden flaws. Mika is vocal about missing her brother, ramping up the despair.

Conveyed by Farrell’s hangdog look and sleepy vocal delivery, Jake increasingly appears overwhelmed. He probably figured that Yang would be a parenting shortcut, a time-saving device, sort of a more advanced Rosie Roomba (here, it should be noted that Yang is designed to be a walking compendium of “fun facts” about China, rather than a fully-qualified teacher). While Kyra seems patient, her entreaties get more forceful in trying to get Jake to do something, anything. If, moreover, Jake’s look and speech could be classic introvert traits, he’s not at all off the hook. His obsession with Chinese tea-making begs the question that his understanding of the thorny cultural differences that Mika must navigate is rather superficial.

Jake mourns Yang – as the loss of a human connection – only to have Yang’s friend, Ada (Haley Lu Richardson), who’s shown up to inquire about Yang’s disappearance, set him straight. Ada is a clone, played by Richardson as a sullen, alienated young woman. We get fleeting glimpses of Yang and Ada’s relationship, maybe the best indication of how much there is under the film’s surface; repeated viewings will enable a better look at these complex emotional layers.

Though little time is allotted in the film for explaining who Ada is, we can acknowledge how close she is to being human, yet able to readily see through Jake’s asking her if Yang “ever want[ed] to be human.” Ada responds,

It’s just … it’s just such a human thing to ask, isn’t it? We always assume that other beings would want to be human. What’s so great about being human?

In the meantime, Jake has been watching the replay of Yang’s memories, which are grainy, low-tech, and, at times, uncannily overlap with what Jake is remembering. Through Yang’s memories, connections emerge that bring together people and places, but the film depicts these connections as more than human.

Questions of Jake’s voyeurism set aside (again, techno-ethics and biopolitics are just lurking under the film’s surface), Yang’s memories are earthbound. Classified as a “ techno sapien,” Yang has the same operational status as the replicants in Blade Runner (1982). If Yang’s memories lack the transcendent poetry of “attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion,” they remain memorably unsettling.

Even more unsettling is that we come to realize that the film’s nature scenes, which initially offer a break from the daily grind, are mediated through Yang’s consciousness. Thus, we can’t help but also feel trapped. If we’re not like Jake, hopelessly caught up in a spiraling human-centric regret (maybe buying Yang, after all, was a sucker’s bet), then we find ourselves stuck in a rapidly unfolding dystopian scenario: if/when AI crashes, it could very well take our life-dependent ecosystems with it.  

Note: Portions of this article are adapted from Rachel S. Anderson’s paper, “Faulty Parts: The (Mal)Functioning Cyborg in After Yang and The Murderbot Diaries” presented at the Science Fiction Research Association Conference in Tartu, Estonia (May 2024), with her permission.