“We are what we survive.” That’s the message of Expats, the powerful new limited series from our guest this week, Lulu Wang. Lulu is a writer-director whose stories are unflinchingly intimate portraits of characters captivatingly full of contradictions. In this show, adapted from a novel by Janice Y.K. Lee, those characters are three women, different in age, class, personal circumstance and relationship to motherhood, who become linked by an unthinkable tragedy. These women’s stories combine to tell a tale of grief and privilege in a modern day Hong Kong battered by typhoon weather and simmering political dissent. And they do so movingly.
Lulu till now has been best known as the writer-director of 2019’s The Farewell, based on a radio story she wrote in 2016 for This American Life, about her own Chinese-American immigrant family. This follow-up to that breakout hit sounds like from the outset some kind of thriller: Nicole Kidman plays Margaret, an American living in Hong Kong whose youngest son disappears at a night market. Instead of a pulse-pounding pursuit, full of cops, clues and criminals like most abduction dramas, Expats instead unfolds at a meditative, mournful pace, against the backdrop of the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong.
In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, celebrating the magnificent finale that dropped today, Lulu discusses about what happened to Margaret's child Gus, why the show refused to give an explanation for his disappearance and instead prioritised what it means to grieve; how grief doesn’t shrink, leaving us instead to grow around it.
Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.
Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.
To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.
Support the Show.
Eileen with Ottessa Moshfegh and Luke Goebel
May December with Samy Burch
The Killer with Andrew Kevin Walker
Killers of the Flower Moon with Eric Roth
The Royal Hotel with Kitty Green
Bottoms with Emma Seligman
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem with Jeff Rowe
Storyteller Sessions: Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects)
Storyteller Sessions: Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas)
Storyteller Sessions: Adam McKay (Anchorman, Don't Look Up)
Elemental with Kat Likkel and John Hoberg
I Love My Dad with James Morosini
Knocked Up with Judd Apatow
Joy Ride with Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao
Erin Brockovich with Susannah Grant
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One with Christopher McQuarrie
Return To Seoul with Davy Chou
The Sopranos with David Chase
Jurassic Park with David Koepp
Doctor Sleep with Mike Flanagan
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Sackhoff Show
Toon’d In! with Jim Cummings
Team Deakins
You Can’t Make This Up
Phase Zero