Everything Everywhere All At Once’s triumph could not have happened 10 years ago
Nine months ago, the idea that Everything Everywhere All At Once would lead the Oscar nominations was a wild fantasy.
You could never accuse Everything Everywhere All At Once of being Oscars bait.
When it comes movies the Oscar traditionalists tend to go for, they’re not usually sci-fi flicks with multiverses, sausage fingers and a Chinese-American family working through emotional traumas, regrets and existential crises.
They also don’t tend to be made by quirky young filmmakers whose last project involved Daniel Radcliffe playing a farting corpse for 97 minutes.
Which makes Everything Everywhere All At Once’s 11 Oscar nominations – the most for this year – something of a miracle.
It’s exactly the kind of thing that would not have happened 10 years ago, before the Academy actively expanded its membership to be more inclusive of women, young people, cultural diversity and international voters.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is not the type of movie that was ever expected to be the leading contender at Hollywood’s ritziest and most elite awards show.
When the film was released in early 2022, there were whispers of an Oscars run for its star Michelle Yeoh, given the actor’s long record of hard work in the industry. She’d previously killed it in the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians and Tomorrow Never Dies.
Yeoh has rarely before been in the Oscars conversation and she has openly talked about the challenges of navigating an industry that isn’t easy for non-white actors.
She told People, “You know what, it’s not about other people doing for us. First we have to do for ourselves. We should never give up. We should always push. We should always step up and step forward to make sure the changes are there. Don’t wait for Hollywood to change this course.”
Yeoh is in the middle of a career renaissance, finally been recognised and lauded for her many, many talents. Her role as Evelyn Wang, an overlooked and downtrodden Chinese-American immigrant, empowered her to flex her dramatic and comedic muscles, as well as her famed action skills.
It’s a role that took imagination to create – which writers and directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as the Daniels, have in reserves.
So while the long overdue Yeoh had attracted early buzz, Everything Everywhere All At Once’s triumph today would still have been a wild fantasy nine months earlier.
There’s the Best Actress nod for Yeoh (she faces stiff competition from Cate Blanchett who has won most of the run-up awards for her performance in Tar), as well as nominations in Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and for co-stars Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu.
It also racked up a bunch of nominations in the technical categories including Original Score, Costume Design, Film Editing and more.
It’s an incredible recognition of a small indie movie made on a relatively small budget of $US25 million and shot over 38 days.
Parasite broke barriers in 2020 when Bong Joon-ho’s South Korean black comedy thriller took home the main prize at the Oscars, but in some ways, Everything Everywhere All At Once is doing something even harder.
This is a film that is specific to a diaspora experience, one that evokes the mixed emotions and identities of characters who straddle two cultural identities, two worlds, and all the expectations that come with that experience.
Framing this core experience through an inventive narrative which takes place over a multiverse which features bold visuals, punchy set-pieces and emotional depth is a masterstroke.
Everything Everywhere All At Once works on different levels for difference audiences, and it was also clearly a hit with moviegoers. It raked in over $US100 million at the global box office, including more than $6 million in Australia.
Come Oscars night, expect Everything Everywhere All At Once to convert its nominations into gold, but in so many ways, it’s already won.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is streaming now on Binge and Amazon Prime Video
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