‘I Imagined a Future That Was Neither Utopian nor Dystopian’
The union of the filmmaker Kogonada and the actor Colin Farrell might not have seemed obvious at first glance. Kogonada’s debut film, the excellent 2017 indie Columbus, is told with quiet remove—the camera is often placed quite a distance away from the lead actors (John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson). Farrell’s charisma can fill a screen, and some of his best performances (Tigerland, Minority Report, In Bruges) overflow with the kind of intense, improvisational energy that seems counter to Kogonada’s artfully composed style.
To hear Farrell tell it, that contrast is exactly why he relished the challenge of After Yang, the wonderful sci-fi film written and directed by Kogonada, which was released in theaters and on Showtime last week. Farrell plays Jake, a father dealing with the malfunction of his family’s robot, Yang (Justin H. Min), who was acquired to be a helper and sibling to Jake’s daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). Though the film begins with Jake hurriedly trying to fix Yang to make his daughter happy, it soon turns into an odyssey through the robot’s hidden memories and feelings, essayed with care and sensitivity by Kogonada.
It’s a contemplative film that requires Farrell to strip away a lot of his natural charm, but the performance is one of the best the actor has ever given, and reminiscent of his in and . He and, the rigors of trying to keep your children happy, and how Farrell hunts for unique roles after all these years. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
