Expat Movies for the Grounded Wanderer
Whether you are the world at large views you as an Expat, Immigrant or Foreigner, packing up your entire life and heading to a new country is no easy feat. And the conflicts that are encountered throughout the endeavour are ripe for storytelling of the highest kind. So, here are a few great movies that chronicle the experience of living, working and moving abroad.
AMREEKA
“Amreeka” named for the Arabic work used to describe the US, “Amreeka” follows the story of Muna Farah, a Palestinian single mother and her son Fadi after they win green cards through the American immigration lottery system. Initially even after this stroke of good fortune, Muna is ambivalent about whether or not she should move her small family abroad. But after her son is harassed by Israeli soldiers in the checkpoint, she decides that joining her sister Raghda Halaby and brother-in-law Nabeel in Illinois.
But unfortunately, things aren’t going well for Raghda and Nabeel either. The year is 2003 and the United States has just invaded Iraq. It is also 2 years after 9/11 and the perception of Arabs and Muslims is at an all time low. Nabeel, a physician with a previously successful practice is watching in real time as his business slowly disintegrates. The family also find themselves at the mercy of racist and Islamophobic anonymous attacks, despite the fact that the family is actually Christian.
When Muna and Fadi arrive, the family only continues to fall apart. And Muna finds herself in desperate need of a job after she finds that her life-savings, which she had stored in a cookie tin, has been confiscated. Despite decades of experience working in banking, multiple degrees and a near fluent level of English, Muna struggles to find work. Eventually, Muna takes employment in the only place that will have her—a local White Castle.
Written by Cherien Dabis, “Amreeka” does an incredible job at exploring the complex layers of what it is like navigating a world where you are treated like a perpetual outsider. And no matter where you are from or where on the map you end up, leaving one world for another will be certain to leave you felling as though you belong to neither at one point in one’s life.
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
A quietly romantic and hauntingly beautiful film, “Call Me By Your Name” tells the story of Elio young Jewish American boy who falls in love with his father’s research assistant Oliver. Over the course of the summer that the two spend together, they explore each other in every way possible—leading to an enmeshment so intense that Oliver tells Elio “Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine.”
What happens before and after is too delicate and beautiful to try to summarize. So it is best that you just head to Amazon Prime and watch what happens for yourself.
LOST IN TRANSLATION
While Scarlett Johansson has been working in the entertainment industry since childhood, arguably, this movie is truly launched her into full-on stardom. The film itself uses the most common of all expat and immigrant grievances, trying to communicate in a country where both the language and the customs are foreign to you. But, as the film’s writer, director and producer Sophia Coppola points out, that feeling of alienation and confusion is just a bigger metaphor for what is going wrong in the characters own lives.
For anyone who has ever moved abroad and had less than a stellar time, this movie may provide you with a level of catharsis that you didn’t know you needed. And for all you aspiring transplants and digital nomads, the movie may give you some insight into what you may be up for once you debark from the plane.
L’AUBERGE ESPANGNOLE
“L’auberge Espagnole” which literally translates to Spanish Hotel and culturally translates as “Potluck,” tells the story of a French student who heads to Barcelona for a year-long exchange program. In typical French movie form, there are affairs, break-ups and a rotating cast of quirky characters who dip in and out of each other’s lives but not before permanently altering them.
Xavier, a 24-year-old student from Paris embarks on a year-long course in Barcelona against the wishes of his girlfriend. His As nearly all the characters are on Erasmus (a year-long European exchange program) and hail from all over the continent. There is no established lingua franca for the film or between the roommates and thus dialogue switches from Romance based vocabulary to an assortment of Germanic dialects in the blink of an eye.
As noted by many of the commenters in the trailer of the movie, it perfectly captures the European study abroad experience and all the miscommunications and trials that come along for the ride.
OUTSOURCED
Anybody alive and in the double digit age bracket in the early 2000s will remember what a point of contention customer service outsourcing was. American customers resented the loss of “American” jobs and took that frustration (with a side serving of racism) out on the Asian representatives. In the movie named and chronicling this experience, Todd Anderson finds himself in job limbo when the customer service branch of his novelty business is shipped from Seattle to Gharapuri, India. His boss orders him to go if he was to retain his stock options.
Begrudgingly, Todd begins his new life in India and works daily to reduce the MPI (Minute-per-Incident) rate so that he can install the new manager and head back home. But as Todd tries to teach his employees how to engage with their American customers, Asha, one of his employees, reminds him that his success as a trainer would improve if he learned a thing or two about India.
What follows is a romantic romp that shows what happens when you approach a new culture with curiosity and respect instead of distain and disgust.
THE AFRICAN DOCTOR
Another fish-out-of-water story, but this time told about a perspective we never see—that of a black family. In “The African Doctor” Seyolo Zantoko the patriarch of the family has just graduated from medical school in Paris. His family remains in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) where he is offered the job of personal doctor of President Joseph-Desiré Mobutu. However, dismayed by the growing corruption in his home country, Seyolo turns down the position, accepting instead a job as a personal physician in a small French town.
Seyolo calls his family and tells them that he has found in position in a small town just north of Paris. His wife Anne declares that she cannot wait until she can shop along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. However, when the family arrives they discover that their new post is actually in Marly-Gomont a small northern rural French town two and a half hours from Paris.
Based on the real life experiences of the movie’s screenwriter Kamini Zantoko, “The African Doctor” is a heart-warming movie that is a great choice to watch with the entire family.
THE BEACH
Situated somewhere between guilty-pleasure and cult classic, “The Beach” is a psychedelic roller coster ride that just gets weirder and weirder as the the story unfolds. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Richard, “The Beach” follows as the young American scours Southeast Asia in desperate search of adventure.
Slowly, he makes his way from Bangkok, to Ko Samui in an attempt to find an idyllic secluded beach. Tired of the tourists and Richard is in search of beauty and authenticity, something that a strange English fellow traveler promises to him by means of a map to a secret island. He gives the map to Richard right before he dies.
Undeterred and perhaps even a bit inspired, Richard makes it to the Gulf of Thailand where he meets some fellow wanderlusters. He leaves a copy of the map for one group and leaves for the island in the company of a French couple. One there, Richard and crew find Utopia by way of danger and all of their lives are changed forever.
Watch “The Beach” if and when you feel a bit stir-crazy and you may find yourself grateful that you are still at home.
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL
The silliest movie on this list, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” stars everybody’s British boyfriend Dev Patel and and ensemble cast of classic British Actors as they adjust to life together on the subcontinent. Dev stars as Sunny a proprietor of ramshackle hotel masquerading as a retirement home. Slowly, he begins to attract retirees from the UK who are looking for a way to stretch out their retirement savings.
Some are there in search of adventure, others are convalescing while others feel as though they have been dragged to India kicking and screaming. However, most have decided to make the best of their experience and form new bonds with each other and India at large as they settle in to enjoy the twilight of their lives.
UMRIKA
Unlike the other movies on this list, “Umrika” is not told from the perspective of the emigre, but from those that they have left behind. From a small village in mountains of India, Udai sets off for a better life in “Umrika.” He leaves behind his mother, father, and little brother Ramakant who one day dreams of meeting him in the US.
Months of silence go by with little word from Udai leaving his mother near frantic. But a few months later, the family begin receiving a series of letters by Udai chronicling his life and trials in the land of hot dogs and apple pie. This goes on for years with Ramakant’s thirst for the US growing stronger and stronger everyday.
When Ramakant comes of age, namely the same age he was when his brother left, his father dies. As does a huge secret, that he and a friend in Mumbai were the ones who had been sending the letters. The reality, in fact, was that no one had heard from Udai since the day he left. Emboldened by grief and a search for answers, Ramakant heads to Mumbai to see if he can find any trace of his long lost brother.
A moving and understated movie, “Umrika’s” unexpected ending will endear you to the longing and risk taking one endures all for the sake of a better life.
UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN
The epitomical expat movie for anyone who came of age in the early aughts, “Under the Tuscan Sun” follows romantic highs and depressing lows of Frances Mayes. On a gay tour of Italy after her heterosexual divorce, Francis stops in front of a villa in Tuscany and impulsively decides to buy it. As she assembles a team to renovate the 300-year-old building, she waffles between hopelessness, frustration and buyer’s remorse.
But the journey to reestablish her life in a country where she knows no one and cannot speak the language, she recreates a wonderful little community of outcasts and eccentrics. All of whom form the basis of her new family. Delightful and visually stunning, “Under the Tuscan Sun” is a must watch for all aspiring and well-established expats.
