Prime Video’s Expats begins with several stories being told with a victim and a perpetrator being identified by each story’s end. It’s almost as if we are conditioned to look at people as only one thing: a savior or a saint, good and evil and so on. Can we be both in our lifetimes? And why do we categorize people in order to tell us how to feel about them. There are many rich, complicated feelings all throughout Lulu Wang’s beautiful series, and she was moved to break free of those constraints to open our hearts to another human being.
The series is adapted from Janice Y. K. Lee’s novel, The Expatriates, and it has a passionate fanbase. Any time a beloved book is transferred from page to screen, there are sacrifices, but Wang knew exactly she wanted to retain with this retelling.
“Sometimes you read something and it’s driven by plot or some crazy characters, but there was something about coming home when I read this novel,” Wang says. “It felt like I knew this world, I knew these women, and it was beautifully meditative. It was deeply empathetic in a way that I was craving. There is so much anger in the world, so much resentment. The richness of this world and how these women come from different walks of life was something I wanted to retain. I didn’t want to sacrifice that feeling for something that was plot-driven.”
The theme of forgiveness permeates every inch of this series. Ji-young Yoo’s Mercy doesn’t expect to be forgiven after she loses the youngest son of Nicole Kidman and Brian Tee’s characters. She can barely forgive herself. Sarayu Blue’s Hilary struggles with approaching the topic with either of her parents. Forgiveness doesn’t go just one way and it can be layered with our thorny histories. Wang pinpoints how, right now, we have a binary view of the notion of giving some else peace.
“Right now, I think we are living in a world of absolute certainty,” she says. “Some people think that how they feel in one particular moment is how they will always feel and the thing someone else has said is who that person is and that is who they will always be. There’s no room for change and for what we don’t know. That uncertainty. Forgiveness, in this story, is not as simple as, ‘I’m angry and now I forgive you.’ There is no binary and nothing is black-and-white. I wanted to explore the process of opening your heart for what we don’t know. That isn’t necessarily forgiveness, because ‘all is forgiven’ is too clear cut. Taking a step in the direction for giving some grace for what we don’t know or another perspective of what we are aware of is what I looked to. These are such small nuances for a big Prime Video series. The arc leads to three women opening up their hearts enough to get a coffee with another person, and, for this series and these circumstances, that’s monumental.”
When Margaret and Clarke (Kidman and Tee) got to mainland China to potentially identify their son’s body, they are brought into spaces to wait where they have to confront each other. The rooms are space with harsh lighting and echoing spaces. They are even put in a locked room with a small window in the door. There is something humane with how Wang forces them to speak to one another even if blame, agitation, and sobs bounce off the walls.
“It was one of my favorite episodes to shoot, and leading up to episode five, I wanted to put my characters where they were trapped,” Wang says. “We just got to dive deep into character. I love that relationship because it’s what we don’t get to talk about all the time. How do these two people who deeply love each other have two different reactions to grief? Can they navigate this together even though they have different experiences? What they are each hoping are very different, and neither is wrong. I think that Clarke feels what he feels is wrong. He feels guilty for wanting a resolution, but you understand both sides and how they could each feel the way they feel. I played with these intersecting perspectives and constantly shifting tones. You can be in the darkest of situations and then you laugh. You can be at a wedding and fight with someone, so I wanted to open that up to being able to laugh at any moment or cry at any moment. That whole range of human experience.
Wang even recalls how Kidman channeled a moment from her own history to explore the mixture of pain and tension release for the scene.
“Nicole came up with that moment in the morgue, and she told me about seeing her father after he has passed,” she says. “She wanted to bring that, and we talked about how it didn’t make sense and how it wasn’t rational. It’s like a traumatic shock response. She told me that her mom actually slapped her to stop, because she couldn’t get her body to stop laughing. We explored it and it felt strange, and we didn’t tell Brian. You see his real reaction to something that wasn’t written in the script.”
Hilary gets a true Gloria Bell moment at the end of the series when she picks up a new rug and walks down the street with it. Wang shoots the scene from across the street, and the lightness in Sarayu Blue’s voice is noticeable. It may look like just a rug, but it’s an indication that Hilary is on her way to setting herself on a new path.
“I love that sequence, because it’s not a huge moment but things like that can help with the arc,” Wang says. “I was really inspired by An Unmarried Woman, and that was such an influence on Hilary’s character for the modern day. That movie still translates. I love the ending of that movie and that sense of freedom–it’s basically the antithesis of a romantic comedy. Hilary finds herself. With all the trauma from her parents, she has all this baggage, and she lets go. It’s about her being present, and Sarayu and I talked about how important it was to admit that to herself. That’s her ending. It was a single take, and it was such a delight to shoot. We were in a beautiful part of Hong Kong on Hollywood Road, and we blocked off the whole street.”
Expats comes to a close with Hilary, Margaret, and Ji-young Yoo’s Mercy sitting down to simply have a conversation. We don’t know if they are all at the same table as it cuts back and forth from each of their faces. It’s about listening and opening yourself up. These women never claim to have all of the answers, but we know that just showing up can serve as a reward. Do you have the courage to do the same?
“The show is set up for intrigue with the binary of ‘perpetrators’ and ‘victims,'” she says. “They are self-identified as that, and they don’t think they should be happy. Margaret, rightfully so, views herself as a victim, but as time goes on, we realize that we are all perpetrators in other peoples’ stories. It’s not about a hierarchy of pain–you can’t go through life counting the grievances. That sequence is that stepping towards opening your heart. Things happen in life, and it’s random. Sometimes we get the shitty end of the stick and sometimes you don’t. It happens.”
Expats is streaming now on Prime Video.
