Umbrella Revolution: About the loss of a loved one

Even though the streaming services produce masses of series and always sophisticated content, the arthouse pearls in this area are few and far between. Now Amazon Prime is coming up with Lulu Wang’s film adaptation of the novel “Expatriates” by Janice Y. K. Lee, which is well worth seeing.

The star-studded six-part series entitled “Expats” with Nicole Kidman, among others, tells the story of three American women who live in Hong Kong and are connected by a tragic story. Margarete’s (Nicole Kidman) four-year-old son is kidnapped in a busy market while New York-born Korean student Mercy (Ji-young Yoo) is looking after him. Meanwhile, Margarete’s Indian-born neighbor Hilary (Sarayu Blue) tries in vain to get pregnant by her husband David (Jack Houston), who begins an affair with Mercy. This drama about the loss of loved ones, sexual desire, disappointed hopes, class differences and psychological states of emergency is told against the background of the so-called Umbrella Revolution ten years ago, when the democracy movement kept Hong Kong in suspense for weeks.

Lulu Wang’s “Expats” unfolds, like a chamber play, this nightmarish story about a lost child whose whereabouts no one knows anything about. Margarete’s family actually wants to return to the USA, but will remain in Hong Kong for a whole year in case the child is found. The pressure within the family is increasing and is heading towards escalation. Margarete becomes more and more obsessive and soon suspects other residents of her apartment building, including her friend Hilary’s husband, of having something to do with the child’s disappearance. At the same time, their marriage is increasingly falling apart, also because of their unfulfilled desire to have children. And Mercy, plagued by remorse over the missing child, gets involved in a love story with a political activist.

This drama takes place in Hong Kong’s upper class. The “expats” in the title are very well-earning executives or entrepreneurs who have their own chauffeur drive them around the area, live in luxury apartments and let domestic servants do the work. This relationship is exactly what is at stake with young Mercy, who, as a potential nanny, loses Margarete’s son, who was only given to her care for a very short time, on her first day.

Where is the line between employees and employers? The series raises this question again and again and one of the six episodes is told entirely from the perspective of the domestic worker. They are supposedly treated like family members, but they still remain subordinates and are supposed to carry out their care work with empathy. It doesn’t matter to employers whether they have to put their own concerns aside. They lack any sensitivity because they only have their own needs in mind.

Lulu Wang stages this classist and sometimes racist relationship extremely pointedly. For example, when Hilary gets drunk with her employee one evening, only to stay in bed the next day and have breakfast served to her again. Margarete’s nanny actually wants to go back to her own family in the Philippines, but is emotionally blackmailed in order to be as available as a worker. And Mercy’s guilty conscience contradicts her role as a potential nanny who can’t really expect any obligations but feels as guilty as if she had lost her own child.

A heated debate arose in Hong Kong about the series “Expats” during filming, as a special permit during the lockdown spared actress and producer Nicole Kidman the 21-day hotel quarantine – against all the usual zero-Covid regulations in Hong Kong.

Given the escalating and militant political struggles of the protest movement in Hong Kong in 2019/20, the contemporary historical background of the series is extremely exciting, but doesn’t really seem up to date. The focus of this filmic narrative that gets under your skin is, on the one hand, on the psychological depths of desperate and grieving people, but on the other hand, on the hierarchical class relationships, which are staged in a fascinating and complex way.

“Expats” on Amazon Prime