On 26 January, Amazon Prime released ‘Expats’ starring Nicole Kidman, an adaptation of Janice Y.K. Lee’s novel of the same name. The adaptation was directed by Lulu Wang, a Chinese-American whose drama about the loss of a loved one, ‘Goodbye’, garnered a slew of nominations and awards in 2019. Film critic Elena Zarkhina talks about the new project of the director.
At the centre of the story are several heroines of different ages, united by the fact that by chance they find themselves in Hong Kong. Margaret (Nicole Kidman) is the wife of a successful businessman and mother of two children. The couple had another, third child, but he died in tragic circumstances. Now Margaret suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and can’t share the immensity of her pain, even with her husband, who supports her, but it’s as if she’s moving on with her life. Her friend Hilary (Saraiyu Blue) is also living well, but is also miserable. She is desperate to save her marriage to David (Jack Huston), but the latter is fighting back. And there is a young girl, Mercy (Yoo Ji-young), formerly the nanny of Margaret’s children, indirectly responsible for the death of the youngest of them.
It is with Mercy’s voiceover that the series begins. She lists several seemingly unrelated tragic stories that ended in someone’s death. Having made it creepy, the girl specifies that in such stories people’s sympathies are always on the side of the victims, but few people are interested in the fate of the perpetrators of the tragedy, who are forced to continue living with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Paul Thomas Anderson’s cult drama Magnolia begins with a similar artistic device (listing stories of miraculous rescues or bizarre accidents). As there, the introduction ties together the stories of very different women. Some seek refuge in Hong Kong, others seek new career opportunities; for some it is the point of a new start in life, for others the opportunity to stop, disappearing into the crowd without a trace.
Director Lulu Wang’s previous big hit, Goodbye, was about a Chinese family in which the grandmother is diagnosed with cancer. The woman was not told about the diagnosis by her relatives so as not to overshadow the last years of her life. However, under false pretence, they organised a lavish celebration so that everyone could say goodbye to the dying woman. Any good screenwriter will tell you that a screen character is defined by the actions he or she takes. But Wang’s picture went the opposite way – the key task of the characters in ‘Farewell’ was the need not to make unnecessary movements and keep the terrible diagnosis of the grandmother in secret. All their activity was reduced not to outward actions, but to inner effort.
‘Expats,’ which is based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s 2016 novel of the same name, also follows on from the reverse. Contrary to its title, the project explores emigration not externally but internally. Literally, an expat is a person living in another country without having its citizenship. But the series looks at expatriation not just as relocation, but as an escape from oneself under tragic circumstances.
If we compare Lulu Wang’s projects, the film ‘Farewell’ was a story about how to hide an impending threat, while the series ‘Expats’ reflects on how to continue living when the worst has already happened. In both projects, a firm female hand is particularly felt – not only in the frame, but also behind it. The writer Janice Y.K. Lee and Lulu Wang, who adapted her text for the small screen, dare to talk frankly without flirting with the audience or trying to please them. In the film, the characters now and then share frank confessions with each other, which are still considered unacceptable for women in society.
Margaret, for example, honestly tells that when she got pregnant for the third time, did not want another child and was not morally ready for it. But kept and pregnancy, and this secret – to share her feelings, she did not dare even with her husband. And when the child was born, her first word to him was ‘sorry’.
Hilary, who is torn between her career and her family, secretly from her husband starts taking birth control pills , although they both dream of having a child. But their marriage is already hanging by a thread, and deciding to have a baby amidst family discord is not a good idea. There’s too great a chance she’ll be alone in a foreign country with a baby in her arms and a divorce certificate, which her equally unhappy husband keeps hinting at.
And Mercy shares memories of a painful relationship with her parents, with whom she stopped communicating and has no regrets. Without them she lives easier and breathes more freely. Such revelations, sounding in moments of special intimacy or during an ordinary dinner in a restaurant, can be heard from the screen is still catastrophically rare.
‘Expats’ invites the viewer to a not the most pleasant, but important conversation. It’s a complex and in places harrowing project, with a lot of pain and reflection about it. But there is a healing effect in this disarming honesty – it allows a woman to be non-ideal without judging her.
