I never thought I would live so long as to see Nicole Kidman become one of the most boring actors of her generation, but we are where we are. Her latest outing, Expats, is the latest in a long line of prestige television dramas in which she wafts about the place as an ethereal, privileged woman haunted by a secret sorrow that all the exquisite soft furnishings and beach views in the world cannot ameliorate.
We have had her as the queen bee of moneyed Monterey society cum victim of domestic violence in Big Little Lies; a bereaved therapist working through her trauma with a group of clients in a luxury spa in Nine Perfect Strangers; and, most recently, as a successful Manhattan psychologist who begins to suspect her loving husband of murder in The Undoing. In the third of those, she was outshone by her character’s emerald-green coat, the garment garnering more interest than anything she has done since Paddington, in 2014.
In new Lulu Wang-directed drama Expats, the feeling that she is running on the fumes of her talent is hard to avoid. Here, she plays Margaret Woo, a landscape architect who gave up her job to follow her loving husband, Clarke (Brian Tee), to Hong Kong for his. They live among many other rich expats in the most prestigious apartment block in the territory; it is literally called The Peak. And what is there to do from a peak, my dears, but fall?
The drama plays out across two timelines: before and after the sorrow that haunts Margaret. If you have ever watched television or read a book, it will be clear to you, almost from the beginning, that this sorrow is either the death or disappearance of a child; I consider it only a small spoiler to tell you that, this time, it is the second.
Over six episodes, Expats intertwines the stories and fates of the three characters it most directly affects. There is Margaret, of course, the grieving, guilt-ridden mother of Gus, whom she left briefly in the care of Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), a young Columbia postgrad whom she was thinking of hiring to replace the family’s longtime nanny and “helper” (in the preferred euphemism of The Peak), Essie (Ruby Ruiz). In the local night market, Mercy is momentarily distracted by her phone – she is trying to glean information about how she should behave during what she has come to realise may be an informal job interview – and Gus is gone.
Margaret’s neighbour and (in the post-disappearance timeline) semi-estranged friend Hilary (Sarayu Blue) is embroiled by virtue of her proximity to the tragedy and by the deepening involvement of her husband, David (Jack Huston), with Mercy.
All of which sets the stage for a languorous – soporific? – meditation on grief, guilt, classism, capitalist greed, the disingenuousness of the rich, racism, emotional and geographical dislocation. Indeed, it ticks just about every box it is possible for a prestige drama – especially one starring Kidman – to tick.
It comes to life, briefly but brilliantly, in the fifth episode – a 90-minute special that plays like an indie film, banishes the main characters to the margins and puts Essie and Hilary’s “helper”, Puri (Amelyn Pardenilla), front and centre. We see Hong Kong life through their eyes as they meet, shop, gossip and navigate their own separations from home and family. We hear that Essie’s son is eager for her to retire and return to the Philippines to live with him, his wife and their baby son. Through Puri in particular – Hilary uses her as an emotional crutch while her marriage falls apart – we see the stresses and precarity with which the domestic staff have to live, never truly able to depend on anything or anyone but themselves.
It plays out against the backdrop of civic unrest. Expats is set in 2014 and in the fifth episode we follow a pair of students who are part of the “umbrella movement” protesting against China’s increasing grip on Hong Kong. One passionately believes in the cause; we watch his mother suffer as he puts himself in increasing danger. The other won’t sacrifice her studies and her chance of escape from her penurious home.
It is moving, even if it doesn’t properly connect to anything that has gone before or comes after. It feels less like an organic part of the drama than a nod to those seeking more than another look at the gilded but discontented lives of the elite. But, the fifth episode aside, this is all Expats really amounts to. It looks great and there are some fine performances – especially from Yoo and Blue – but we have seen it all before. Sometimes with Kidman, sometimes without. But many times before.
• Expats is on Prime Video now
