They’re known as “techno-sapiens.” In order to raise their adopted Chinese daughter, a struggling Anglo tea shop owner and a Black businesswoman — married but growing ever-more-faintly distant from each other — go to a discount retail outlet known as Second Siblings and buy a used techno, a companion wired to the digital brim with knowledge regarding their daughter’s cultural heritage.
That’s the premise of “After Yang,” an exquisite bit of futurism from the filmmaker known as Kogonada. His debut feature, the Indiana-set romance “Columbus,” signaled a writer-director of unusual patience and visual temperament. “After Yang” is just as good, in a different direction.
Kogonada’s adaptation of the 2016 Alexander Weinstein short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” begins years after this family of three has essentially adopted the techno, who happens to be an Asian-designed adult, as a second child. He, or it, is played by Justin H. Min. Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith portray the parents; the young girl, Mika, hopelessly devoted to her brotherly companion Yang, is played by an effortless charmer named Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja.
