The Farewell’s director Lulu Wang talks about working with Nicole Kidman on the Prime Video series “Expats,” which is set in Hong Kong, and why directing the series was similar to directing six feature films.
Filmmaker Lulu Wang is back five years after giving us the devastating comedy-drama The Farewell, which propelled her into the public eye and earned her nods for BAFTA and the Golden Globes.
Working with main actress Nicole Kidman, Wang has created the six-part limited series titled “Expats,” which is based on Janice Y. K. Lee’s best-selling novel The Expatriates. When Kidman was looking for someone to adapt the novel, Wang was the perfect choice to helm the movie because of her own ethnic background.
The story of three American women, Margaret (Nicole Kidman), Hilary (Sarayu Blue), and Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), whose realities collide after an unanticipated catastrophe, is at the center of the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and political protests.
With a focus on class, privilege, racism, and gender, the program unravels secrets and breaks relationships while attempting to answer morality and guilt-related problems.
It may seem like a far cry from the poignant yet heartbreaking little gem that was The Farewell, which told the story of a granddaughter who learns her grandmother has terminal lung cancer and travels to China to arrange an impromptu wedding before she passes away in an attempt to keep the news from her.
However, after previously working mostly with rising stars, Wang, who also serves as Kidman’s executive producer on the series, appears to have risen magnificently to the challenge of directing Hollywood A-listers. She is a pianist with classical training who has also contributed to the show’s soundtrack.