‘Preparation for the Next Life’ is an uninspired undocumented romance

Adapted by playwright and first-time feature screenwriter Martyna Majok (from the 2014 novel of the same name by Atticus Lish), Preparation for the Next Life marks the narrative debut of director Bing Liu, the Chinese-born American filmmaker behind the skateboarding doc Minding the Gap—which proved surprising and hard-hitting upon its 2018 release. Liu’s debut went on to be nominated at the Academy Awards, and remains a stunning example of what’s possible when an artist turns their camera on themself, and gradually confronts the most difficult parts of their own story. Unfortunately, that sense of care and tact doesn’t carry over to Preparation for the Next Life, in which the self-assured migrant worker Aishe (a debuting Sebiye Behtiyar) quickly falls for the wandering, stop-lossed soldier Skinner (Gladiator II’s Fred Hechinger). The film wastes little time in getting them together, and settles into a one-tracked, prescriptive mode of romantic drama from which it never strays.

Aishe’s Uyghur-language voiceover opens the story and quickly guides us towards the basics of her character. She’s headstrong, thinks often of her father—a soldier as well, known to us only as a shape in her memory—and she keeps mostly to herself among the Chinese immigrants of Flushing, New York, despite working alongside them in various kitchens for low pay. As an ethnic minority from China, Aishe feels like an outsider no matter where she goes. But given her promise to her father to remain resilient, and to prepare for her future (or her “next life”), she works out to stay focused, going on daily runs, water bottle diligently in hand.

Skinner, who hops off a bus and ends up in New York’s Times Square—as though he’d just been airdropped directly from the Middle East—has a similar commitment to physical health, and lifts weights to make up for his diminutive stature. They catch each other’s eye in public one evening and begin spending time together, before the movie hops and skips forward at uneven intervals. Where we are in time—which is to say, in the course of the couple’s relationship—is often muddled. In Liu’s approach, romance is a feeling first and foremost, an admirable approach on paper that goes quickly awry. 

The actors are appropriately trepidatious at first, and they eventually settle into the less comfortable parts of domestic life together (especially as loners who continue to butt heads), but they’re seldom afforded the chance to create much depth beyond their “types” as prescribed by the movie’s plot. Hechinger imbues Skinner with a simmering rage that, while unpredictable in theory, doesn’t rear its head on screen in ways that upset the movie’s languorous rhythm. Meanwhile, the acidity of Aishe’s independent streak is often cut by Behtiyar’s sweetness; as a first-time screen performer, she finds remarkable balance between emotional extremes, but she’s tasked with playing the idea of a person first and foremost. Aishe represents the broad concept of an undocumented immigrant with vague reasons for immigrating, whose dedication to her work ethic is threatened by the looming specter of government inquiry—a fear she references, but one that doesn’t manifest emotionally. Who either character actually is, from what they want out of life (or each other) to their basic interests, remains an opaque mystery.

Liu, along with cinematographer Ante Cheng, creates a poetic façade about the duo’s courtship, with dim lights and lens flares enveloping the frame, but each of their scenes feels like a transitionary moment more befitting of an abstract montage. In Preparation for the Next Life, the idea of romance is reduced to texture and connective tissue—to the right lighting and music cues. It rarely takes shape as relatable, exciting, invigorating human behavior. It feels as though the characters know what romance ought to look like, so they follow the motions. But keep in mind: this isn’t some deconstructive love story. Its overtures towards the romantic are entirely sincere, so the couple’s “sweet nothings” play less as moments of mutual comfort, and more like awkward silences. We never really get to know what troubles them, even though we see how their troubles manifest. And while this disconnect lies at the heart of their (and really, every) relationship, it makes for a frustratingly distancing watch, leaving us un-tethered from either character’s point of view.

There is, perhaps, something to be said about the fact that Liu’s film is the rare U.S. studio release to touch on some realistic aspects of the modern immigrant experience. But this, too, ends up more logistical than emotional. The anxieties Aishe references are limited to dialogue, rather than something felt or expressed aesthetically—let alone an undercurrent that perseveres, despite her attempts to grasp happiness or satiety. That she’s undocumented is an aspect of her identity that flips on like a switch whenever the plot demands it, like when she seeks legal recourse, or when she has to evade the long arm of U.S. immigration law.

The movie’s 2025 arrival no doubt positions Preparation for the Next Life as a “Trump 2.0” film, given recent news items about recent ICE snatch-and-grabs, though it’s worth noting that it was shot under former President Joe Biden’s administration, and the book it’s based on belongs to the Obama era. None of these fears and dangers are new, but they’re presented with such emotional and logistical non-specificity that they become less about how people like Aishe are forced to live, and more about how a problem sometimes crops up if you’re not careful enough. The film isn’t political in a bipartisan sense, but the way it incorporates a political world into the lives of its deeply politicized bodies is only skin deep.  

Similarly, Skinner’s status as a former fighter cast aside, and forced to deal with declining mental health, exists only within the narrow confines of his relationship to Aishe, despite the camera capturing moments when they’re apart. What torments Skinner is neither a secret nor an open wound, but rather, a dramatic question hovering somewhere in the background, one the movie never really tries to confront. Neither character feels as if they have any life outside the central plot—the question of “Will they end up together, and if so, how?”—because the movie is constrained by its identity as a romance between social outcasts, rather than being liberated by it.

In Hollywood, the romance genre is seldom afforded such parameters of legal and emotional unpredictability. The few examples that come to mind are The Sun Is Also a Star and Blue Bayou, which were released in 2019 and 2021 respectively, and each featured undocumented characters trapped in impossible situations, with the weight of the world crashing down on their love stories. In Preparation for the Next Life, who these people are is less important than what’s happening to them—ergo, around them—resulting in a fundamental disconnect. It’s a film that says all the right things, and warps light and sound around its characters in familiar ways that signal that there ought to be something tangibly electric between them. But despite the tremendous efforts of its actors, their sparks are fleeting at best. Despite its potential for meteoric impact, it leaves only a light impression.