Daniel Kwan, after winning the Oscar for Best Director with his directorial partner Daniel Scheinert, had a message for his son: “I want you to know that you will never have to live up to this standard. This is not normal. This is crazy.”
He was, of course, talking about his exceptional personal success, but he might as well have been talking about his film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, which won seven Oscars. That too is exceptional, unique, unexpected and perhaps even the start of a new film industry.
The sci-fi comedy by Daniels (the “stage name” of Scheinert and Kwan), while the film with the most nominations, is by no means a film that normally does well at the Oscars.
The synopsis already makes it clear why. The film is about Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh, Oscar winner for Best Actress in a Leading Role), an Asian-American mother who works her way through a laundromat. She despises her husband (Ke Huy Quan, Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner) for his well-meaning drowsiness and becomes estranged from her lesbian daughter. Meanwhile, she must get the taxes in order before the inspector (Jamie Lee Curtis, Oscar winner Best Supporting Actress) closes her case. Her life seems like a soul-numbing routine, but then she discovers that parallel universes exist, where she has made different life choices, where everyone has hot dogs for fingers, or where everyone is simply a talking stone. And on top of that, she’s the only one who has to save all these universes from destruction by fighting her own daughter.
Relative unknowns
The film is not based on a book, like many other Oscar winners. It is not the product of celebrated filmmakers, but of two relative unknowns whose only previous film, Swiss Army Man (2016), was about a corpse that can’t stop pooping, played by Daniel Radcliffe. And it is not a film about an important social theme like previous Oscar winners CODA (2022, about deafness), Nomadland (2021, about poverty and flexible working), Parasite (2020, on social inequality), Greenbook (2019, about racism) and so on. On the other hand, it is an original, complicated, hilarious, sometimes pubescent mash of ideas – truly unique.
That’s one of the reasons why film journalists (such as Brooks Barnes of The New York Times) Monday morning speculated that there might be another “NewHollywood‘ has risen. One that’s done with ‘painted dead winners’ and Oscar bait movies. A Hollywood in which crazy experiments by visionary filmmakers are given space again, as in the 1960s, when the industry reinvented itself under the leadership of filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese.
Also read this profile of director duo Daniels: Directing duo Daniels (Everything Everywhere All at Once) finds depth in absurdity
There is more evidence for this theory. The big Hollywood productions lost everything. The Fablemansa nostalgic, sentimental, autobiographical story by Hollywood king Steven Spielberg, won nothing. Top Gun: Maverick won only for Best Sound, while everyone praises the film for bringing audiences back to the cinema. James Cameron, director of Avatar: The Way of Water didn’t even attend (allegedly) because he wasn’t nominated for Best Director. And also Hollywood epic Babylon and Elvis biofilm Elvis won nothing – while they could also have been major candidates.
Indie film production company A24, on the other hand, won all major categories with Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and The Whale. And Netflix won six Oscars with All Quiet on the Western Frontanimation film Pinocchio and short documentary The Elephant Whispererswhile streaming services were skipped at the Oscars for years.
Divided ethnic groups
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once also continued another Hollywood development: the growing appreciation for Asian(-American) filmmakers, which had started in recent years with the profits of the Korean Parasite for Best Picture, and Chloé Zhao for Best Director (Nomadland). Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress on Sunday night. She dedicated her award to all boys and girls “who look like me.”
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Her Oscar is celebrated throughout Asia. Yeoh has been a role model for decades since she became a kung-fu movie saint in Hong Kong movies. It feels like recognition to many, not just of Asian actresses, but of all Asian arts. In Yeoh’s native Malaysia, the prize even builds bridges between deeply divided ethnic groups. “Because she is successful not only in Chinese Hong Kong films but also in international films, she appeals to all Malaysians,” says Malaysian student Yue Yi Lai. NRC. “Everyone shares in her success. And because of that, she connects all Malaysian ethnicities.”
Will the 95th Oscars actually change the industry? That remains uncertain. Especially since the films that are appreciated at the Oscars and the films that are appreciated by the movie audience are further apart than ever. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once earned $101 million worldwide, Avatar: The Way of Water about 2.3 billion. Who knows, at least it’s a short victory of creativity over mass.
With the cooperation of Saskia Konniger