The Expats Review: Nicole Kidman Leads a Great Ensemble in Exciting Prime Video Miniseries | Web Series News
Women are at war with their husbands, children are at war with their parents, and men are at war with themselves in The Immigrants, an ambitious new miniseries. Premier video, created and directed by Lulu Wang. The director burst onto the scene with 2019’s masterful The Farewell, a semi-autobiographical drama about a young American woman who reconnects with her Chinese roots during a short trip to the mainland.
Based on the novel by Janice I.K.Lee, The Expats takes a look at the (privileged) lives of several similarly unhinged characters as they struggle to maintain their identities in contemporary Hong Kong – a melting pot of cultures currently undergoing major upheaval. Wang doesn’t ignore the political backdrop against which this story of deception and desperation unfolds, as he weaves a compelling human drama around a rather fluffy plot revolving around the disappearance of a small child. Often times, Expats feels at odds with itself, juggling two tonally different narratives—a delicate story of grief and forgiveness, and a thriller not unlike Big Little Lies , with which it shares a star and an executive producer. Nicole Kidman.
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Kidman portrays Margaret, a wealthy American woman who lives in a beautiful complex with her husband and children. Her neighbor is Hilary, an Indian American stuck in a loveless marriage to David, an Englishman. Margaret and Hilary are brought together under the most unfortunate of circumstances by Mercy, a young Korean-American who escapes her past by taking odd jobs in Hong Kong.
One day at a boat party, Mercy’s easygoing relationship with Margaret’s children gets her hired as their babysitter. Soon after, they go shopping at a night market, where Margaret leaves the youngest of her three children, Gus, in Mercy’s care. But due to a momentary lapse in concentration, Gus turns away from the mercy and is instantly swallowed up by the sea of humanity around them. It’s the show’s inciting incident in many ways, but Wang only shows it in the second episode. Expats takes a big little lie approach in the first episode, sets up some scandalous interpersonal dynamics, and then backtracks.
Why, for example, is there a wall between Margaret and Hillary? Why does Margaret recoil in shock the moment she lays eyes on Mercy at a fancy cocktail party? And why does her husband, Clark, cry on his own birthday? True, it is all a small camp. But the tone changes in the second episode, bringing the high drama back down to earth. By the time the show’s standout episode — number five — rolls around, you’re hooked. This is what Wang is building towards. At an hour and 40 minutes long and with a more cinematic aspect, episode five offers not only a more grounded narrative, but also a shift in perspective.
It is presented from the point of view of several housemaids who were only background players until then. These characters are also expatriates who have arrived in Hong Kong from countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia with a fraction of the resources their bosses have come with. Much of Margaret’s anxiety stems from her children’s growing attachment to their help, essay; This is what makes him want to hire Mercy in the first place. He can’t bear the guilt of it, and Esse can’t even imagine if Gus would still be safe if he took care of her instead of pitying her that evening. It’s quite a complex scenario, which Wang manages masterfully. But despite Margaret and Hilary’s profanity — and they often do — the invisible wall between them is always apparent.
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These are emotionally locked charactersAnd often, the show dramatizes their inner turmoil by trapping them in physical spaces. For example, almost an entire episode is devoted to Hilary and her visiting Punjabi mother locked in an elevator, forced to explain a past trauma in a “pin” box. We learn that Hilary is actually Harpreet Kaur and that she has not forgiven her abusive father for the abuse he inflicted on her mother. Hilary discovered makeup not as a teenager, but as a four-year-old forced to cover up her mother’s bruises. Margaret, on the other hand, is essentially locked in her own home with the pastor her husband relied on after Gus’s tragic disappearance. He initially rejects religion, but evolves during an evening he spends with the pastor, himself an immigrant, as torrential rains restrict him from going.
These scenes are convincingly written, if a little contrived. But it only takes a few minutes for the tone Wang aims to acclimate to, a tone he manages over six engrossing episodes.
immigrants
Director – Lulu Wang
in roles – Nicole Kidman, Sarah Blue, Ji-Young Yoo, Brian T, Jack Huston, Ruby Ruiz
rating – 4/5
