Expats Tells Disjointed Story of American Privilege In Hong Kong
In the heart of Hong Kong, a group of women are affected after the loss of Margaret’s (Nicole Kidman) little boy that triggers a chain of life-changing events. These events leave everyone navigating in a world of grief while balancing blame and accountability. Expats examines the way people cope and react to tragedy when faced with taking accountability for their own actions, no matter how bad they were. This series is an adaptation of Janice Y.K. Lee’s 2016 novel The Expatriates.
At the start of the series, we are introduced to each character individually, not knowing yet how they are all connected. We all know Nicole Kidman can play the part of an intimidating woman, but can she play the grieving mother? The answer is astoundingly, yes. As a multifaceted character, Margaret must balance the grief she feels for losing her son, the hope of finding him, the anger she feels towards the person responsible for losing him, and the love of her two other children. Kidman does this with ease, expressing her empathy in public and grief-filled outbursts in private.
Sarayu Blue plays Hillary, Margaret’s fellow expat friend who works in the city as an architect. It’s clear from the beginning that her and her husband David (Jack Huston) have been experiencing marital problems. We are also introduced to Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), a young adult struggling to fit in with her rich counterparts. As the show goes on, we come to realize they are all entangled in one big web of love, lust, grief, and loss. Each woman is also trying to understand their relationship with motherhood. Between marriages and affairs, each woman faces the idea of becoming a mother or losing a child. This series is a deep exploration of the multifaceted relationship women have to motherhood, not just for themselves but with their own family.
The commentary on wealth, as it pertains to the idea of housekeepers and nannies being heavily involved in a family, is an interesting idea I haven’t seen much in the media. In the series, the family members are expats and have people that live in their home to help makes the transition easier. Hillary and Margaret both rely heavily on their live-in help in order to function day to day, proving their helplessness and inability to learn about and conform to the culture they now live in. As someone becomes so ingrained in a family dynamic, where does work end and personal feelings begin? The boundaries begin to blur and this causes tension within the households.
The series also fails to address the ongoing strife in Hong Kong in a meaningful or impactful way. In one episode we are exposed to the political unrest in the area through a couple of local college students that Mercy met at a restaurant. As they go to protests and one student gets arrested, we get a small glimpse into the larger political climate of Hong Kong, but it is not mentioned again. The lack of connection between these scenes and the rest of the characters makes it seem like the inclusion of these scenes were an afterthought. It’s clear that Margaret and Hillary live in oblivious rich privilege, but there was an opportunity to use other characters to further explore the side of Hong Kong that the women fail to recognize.
The shifting timelines and web of relationships between characters keep things moving, but the pacing lacks an element of interest. For a series titled Expats, the show neglects to acknowledge how the characters are effected by their location. The only time it is a relevant plot point is at the very end. The climactic episode, which runs for 97 minutes, tries to cram in an insane amount of storytelling that would have been better split up.
As a missing child story, the focus seems to stray and dive deeper into the world of tone-deaf privilege. The series fails to give viewers a clear resolution or closure for not just one, but all of the characters. Expats could have benefitted from further editing and an eight episode structure opposed to six. It seemed like an attempt at commentary on privilege instead of the grief and despair of losing a child.
Expats is streaming on Prime Video.
