How Everything Everywhere Became Everything Everywhere
I'm still not totally sure how this wonky indie dramedy became the Oscar frontrunner, but here we are.
The first time I saw Everything Everywhere All at Once was on March 24, 2022. I saw it again three days later. And then one more time after a few months.
Although excited about the movie after seeing the mystifying trailer and reading positive reviews, I was quite shocked by how much I loved it. It may not have been my favorite film of the calendar year, but it was right up there and just ticks behind The Worst Person in the World and TÁR.
As much as I enjoyed EEAAO, there was not a split second where I thought it would be in the Best Picture race, and yet, it now has a stranglehold on the competition. It would be a legitimate shock if it didn’t win the biggest prize, and I’m still kind of wondering how we got here.
The Cool Kids (more out-there movies in the public consciousness) always get nominated in Original Screenplay, so I thought there would be a chance for the Daniels to sneak into the awards race there. When a movie is publicly beloved but a bit too eccentric or genre-focused for the Academy, it’s usually given a runner-up-esque prize in screenplay. Promising Young Woman, Get Out, Manchester by the Sea, Her and Django Unchained all feel like comps to 2022’s sci-fi epic in one way or another. A bit too strange, small or niche for the Oscars but so adored that it has to win something. That’s where I thought we were heading, but it looks like we have a Parasite Best Picture run on our hands.
Over the last decade or so, the Academy has drastically shifted its base, and it shows in what types of movies have been winning lately. The last three victors of CODA, Nomadland and Parasite are not “usual” Oscar fare, and the expanding of the membership base seems to have been a big push into this new direction.
According to an AMPAS branch count dated Jan. 24, 2022, the Academy has 9,487 members who are eligible to vote for this year’s 94th Academy Awards when nomination voting opens on Thursday. The increase came after a year in which 395 film professionals were invited to join the Academy, about half the number that had been invited since the 2016 #OscarsSoWhite protests caused AMPAS leadership to undertake a revamping of its membership. During the ensuing five-year drive, membership increased from just over 6,000 voting members to more than 9,000. -The Wrap
What we have now is a more international mix of voters, which certainly has led to more out-there director selections this year like Ruben Östlund and foreign nominated movies like Triangle of Sadness and All Quiet on the Western Front. This expansion also looks to have bolstered Everything Everywhere All at Once, as its multiverse exterior isn’t as much of a drawback as it would have been 10-20 years ago.
The other big spark beind the EEAAO wave looks to be its tremendous awards-season push and A24 being better than anyone else right now at getting its films to the finish line.
For a movie that came out in March, this sci-fi epic is still right in the center of culture in good ways and bad. All news is good news, and this crew seems to know that. Just in the last few days, A24 dropped a podcast featuring a conversation between Oscar hopefuls Michelle Yeoh and Brendan Fraser and worked with New York Magazine for a long Daniels feature, as they’re firmly in the Best Director(s) race as well.
Over the last decade, A24 has become the gold standard for building Oscar campaigns. From the shocking Moonlight win to a company-best 18 noms in 2023, A24 has the wherewithal and creativity to push its movies in new ways. The Paul Mescal Aftersun nomination is a great example of a performance that could get lost if handled by another team, and yet A24 found innovative ways to get the performance in front of as many people as possible.
With all that said, EEAAO is an Oscar-esque movie in the packaging of something wonkier. Beneath the buttplug awards and hot-dog fingers, the Michelle Yeoh led action-comedy still follows the playbook for beloved Academy movies. It’s a story about family (and adopted family) by a technically-sound team, which crescendos with an optimistic and un-cynical conclusion. Like The Shape of Water, the themes are universal as long as you look past the bizarreness that immediately slaps you in the face. Something like The Banshees of Inisherin would be almost more of a reach for Best Picture as it concludes in such a melancholic and brutal way … great movie though.
A24’s genius and the expansion of the Academy have allowed Everything Everywhere to be firmly planted in the Oscar race, but it still makes sense for a movie like this to gradually become an awards behemoth of sorts.
One last thing, the movie’s great. That’s probably the most important thing.