Prime Video’s new limited-drama “Expats” is emotionally heavy — I cannot overemphasize how heavy it is. Set against the Umbrella Movement (named for how protestors used umbrellas to block police pepper spray) that arose during the 2014 Hong Kong protests for election transparency, “Expats” revolves around a horrific tragedy that triggers a sequence of life-shattering events for wealthy wife Margaret (Nicole Kidman), successful career woman Hilary (Sarayu Blue), and recent Ivy League graduate Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), the three American women at the center of this six-episode series.
Margaret and her multi-ethnic family have lived in Hong Kong for years, and she is looking forward to moving back to the United States to restart her career in landscape architecture, which she put on hold to follow her Asian American husband Clarke (Brian Tee) to Hong Kong. Clarke wants to accept another term in Hong Kong because he likes their cushy lifestyle, but Margaret longs to feel like herself again instead of being defined in relation to her husband and children. Indian American Hilary works in fashion, and her British husband David (Jack Huston) keeps pressuring her to start a family despite their both initially agreeing to remain childless. She’s adamant she doesn’t want to have a child, but everyone in her life keeps telling her she’ll regret it if she doesn’t. As for Korean American Mercy, she is a recent Columbia University graduate and escaped to Hong Kong because she wanted a fresh start to her life at 24. Juggling multiple low-paying jobs to make ends meet, Mercy is lonely and struggling to fit in despite being mistaken as a local because of her East Asian appearance.
Based on the novel “The Expatriates” by Janice Y.K. Lee, the television series adaptation has all the hallmarks of what I love in shows. It explores themes of resilience, denial, self-deception, motherhood and caregiving, as well as scrutinizes the multiple kinds of privilege that intersect class, citizenship, race, and gender. The drama examines the fine line between taking accountability for one’s actions and holding onto toxic guilt, unable to let go.
Through it all, executive producer, creator, director, and writer Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”) brilliantly navigates the delicate balance of bringing the audience into the lives of others without judgment or commentary.
In particular, I loved how “Expats” delves into and confronts who we consider an “expat” versus an “immigrant.” Wang realizes how the term “expats” can be very triggering. We generally use it for anybody who moves to another country temporarily for work.
“People’s perception of an expat is a Westerner in a non-Western country, often experiencing privileges that the locals themselves don’t have,” the writer says, adding that she wanted to challenge that from all directions. “Mercy is not Western looking, but she’s also not a local, she also doesn’t have money, and yet she’s an expat. Or Hilary, who’s Indian American, she’s dark-skinned in an East Asian country. She’s definitely an outsider — and not in the way you think Margaret is an outsider. I wanted to explore all these different facets of the different levels of privilege they all have or lack.”
Investigating Resilience in the Aftermath of Devastation
A lot of what makes “Expats” so intriguing is in its interrogation of how people respond in the wake of tragedy — especially when that person is directly or indirectly responsible for it.
Margaret is stuck and driving her loved ones away in her grief. She lives in denial about what’s right in front of her face, and she’s cruel because she’s so desperate. Hilary is reeling from her marital problems, her carefully cultivated image crumbling. She doesn’t want to be trapped like her mother had been, yet still wants to save her marriage. Mercy is aimless, sabotaging all the good that happens to her and clings to her limiting beliefs. She ricochets from one bad decision to another and it’s especially difficult to sympathize with her when she hates herself so much.
Wang explains that one of the biggest themes the writers talked about was the idea of resilience and the kind of resilience we and these women all have.
“We were asking this question for all of the characters: whether it’s better to fight or better to endure,” Wang says. “They’re different but they’re both types of resilience on their own.”
She added that people tend to judge the option that they would not choose themselves: “You should just endure this! No, you need to fight this! Either thing you choose is its own challenge all of our characters are facing — as well as the city of Hong Kong. That’s a question for the city as a place of resilience.”
Speaking of Hong Kong, I do wish the Umbrella Movement and side stories touching upon the student protests had been examined more. The situation often felt tacked on as an afterthought even though some of the best lines are delivered by protestor Charly (Bonde Sham). I wished she had been a main character instead of a supporting character to help Mercy along in her journey.
“Expats” Executes its Novel’s Vision
Though the heartbreaking topics of grief, suffering, endurance, and self-hatred in “Expats” can be uncomfortable to watch, the gorgeous cinematography by Anna Franquesa-Solano and fantastic directing choices by Wang truly ease the experience.
Wang expertly uses dramatic irony in the first few episodes to amp up so much suspense and dread that I almost stopped watching entirely because I couldn’t handle the anxiety. Told non-linearly, we as the audience only know that something very bad happened but we don’t know what. As a result, every flashback is fraught with anxiety and discomfort. Casual comments feel ominous. Everyday situations are steeped in fear, reminding us of the fragility of life even in the midst of normalcy.
Similar to the book, Wang replicated the non-linear structure of the original story, saying that she quite liked that she knew some things but didn’t know everything. She wanted to throw the audience in the middle rather than start from the beginning. “A lot of the changes [we made] were just about expanding on the world that Janice had already built so beautifully, expanding on the characters, [and] challenging who these characters were,” the director explains.
For example, in the book, there was a male character named Charlie featured in a small role. The writers wondered why Charlie (or “Charly,” as the TV character’s name is spelled) couldn’t be a woman and still essentially be the same character and serve the same purpose. “There were these small choices that gave us the opportunity to explore yet another facet of Hong Kong and the people there,” adds Wang. “Because the city has changed so much since the book was written, I wanted to make sure the show was reflecting that somehow.”
One of the standout moments is the visual representation of Margaret’s emotional state by connecting the end of Episode 2 with the beginning of Episode 3. Wang shows Margaret standing in the middle of a street and the next episode opens with the same shot shown in a time-lapse until it resolves back to Margaret standing there. The world continues turning, but Margaret is stuck, frozen in time, unable to be rooted in the present moment for her family or herself.
The static shots came out of Wang’s conversations with Franquesa-Solano. “We talked a lot about how to portray grief,” says the executive producer, saying she wanted it to feel like the world was moving on even though this horrendous thing had happened. “What’s the best way to depict that? And [how] to do it in a way that was mostly through visual and sound and not by showing the reactions of the characters. That’s the more traditional way: you stay with the characters and how they’re feeling. But I wanted the audience to feel what Margaret was feeling.”
“Expats” Forces Us to Face Our Discomfort
From the stellar acting, the cinematography that uses the vibrant city of Hong Kong as a thrumming backdrop teeming with a pulse of its own, to the writing and direction, everything about the show is expertly crafted. It is stunning. And yet, I cannot say I always enjoyed the experience (and perhaps, I was not meant to).
Few of the characters come off as likable — even if we are sympathetic to their plight. I absolutely despised the ending and outright hated the choices most of the characters made. And yet, when I ask myself how I would have behaved differently, I don’t know that I would have. Instead, I am only grateful that it is fiction and pray I don’t ever have to experience it firsthand.
Perhaps, that is the true strength of “Expats”: the story is agonizingly human.
The first 2 episodes of Prime Video’s 6-episode drama series “Expats” will be released on January 26, 2024 with new episodes dropping weekly thereafter. Check out the trailer here.
Image credits: Prime Video
