The premise of this stylish noirish psychological thriller is immediately compelling and universally haunting: how could you cope with the unimaginable trauma of your child disappearing, and would it ever be possible to rebuild your life?
Set among the privileged lives of wealthy expatriates in Hong Kong, the story centres on three American women – Margaret (Nicole Kidman), Hilary (Sarayu Blue), and Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), whose friendships are shattered by the tragic disappearance of Margaret’s small child.
What follows is a fast-paced and clever exploration of privilege, victimhood and what it is to belong.
Based on Janice Y. K. Lee’s 2016 novel The Expatriates, the six-episode limited series takes place during the height of the city’s 2014 Umbrella protest Movement, and the lifestyles of wealthy, detached expatriates are set in harsh juxtaposition to those of their myriad domestic servants.
The value of different lives is sharply interrogated – domestic servants are everywhere in Hong Kong, but they’re second class citizens. The white expats don’t bother to speak the language, they just make their voices louder when they talk to the locals in English.
Margaret’s husband believes his child’s life had less currency because he looked Chinese, so would be easier to traffic. The expats lead a gilded existence in luxurious apartments while the local Hongkongers live in relative squalor, in dilapidated and crowded high rises.
This is in part a love letter to the city of Hong Kong, brought to life exquisitely in imaginative cinematography, and is thought-provoking as it subtly interweaves different themes, which reverberate throughout the show using the motif of endless corridors.
One of these themes is motherhood and what it is to be a mother. "You know they say pain can’t be ranked," Margaret says to her childless friend Hilary, "but that’s not true. My pain is so much worse than anything you can imagine and you’re never going to understand because you’re not a mother."
Motherhood, here, is a blessing but it is also a burden. Loving someone so much is painful. Mothers are bothersome and cause trauma to their children.
Victimhood is also explored, as the show gently enquires why stories always focus on the victim, not the perpetrator, despite the perpetrator also suffering lifelong damage, as Hilary’s troubled husband – played convincingly and sensitively by Jack Huston – displays so well.
His relationship with Mercy, the woman who appears to be somehow involved or implicated in the loss of Margaret's child, is entirely sexual; simultaneously disposable and surprisingly intimate.
The three women’s relationships and their simmering power dynamics and fissures are also expertly dissected.
Used to the sausage factory produce of streaming channels, I wasn’t expecting to find this drama so interesting and subtle. Nicole Kidman is mesmerising, the music by Alex Weston is pitch perfect and Lulu Wang has now made her mark as a director of note. This is a triumph.
