The metaphysical multiverse comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won best picture at the 95th Academy Awards, along with Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Though worlds away from Oscar bait, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s anarchic ballet of everything bagels, googly-eyed rocks and one messy tax audit emerged as an improbable Oscar heavyweight. As A24’s second best picture winner after “Moonlight,” this indie hit won seven Oscars in total. Only two films in Oscar history have won three acting Oscars – “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Network.”
With a different immigrant experience from “The Godfather,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won the Oscars fifty years after. Its eccentric tale about a Chinese immigrant family — just the second feature by the Daniels, as the filmmaking duo is known — blended science fiction and alternate realities in the story of an ordinary woman and laundromat owner.
“The world is changing rapidly, and I fear our stories aren’t keeping up.” Kwan, who shared the award for best original screenplay and best director, said. I have a lot of faith in our stories even though it can be a little scary knowing that movies move at years and the internet moves at milliseconds.
As the first Asian woman to win best actress, Yeoh won her first Oscar for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The 60-year-old Malaysian-born Yeoh won her first Oscar with a performance that emphasized her comic and dramatic chops as much as her kung fu abilities. In 20 years, a non-white actress has won best actress, and Yeoh received a raucous standing ovation for her statement.
Released in March 2022, “Everything Everywhere” breathed new life into arthouse cinemas after a two-year pandemic hiatus. Despite modest expectations for Oscar nominations, the film exceeded $100 million in ticket sales. The Daniels, both just 35 years old, became only the third directing duo to win best director at the Academy Awards – joining Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (“West Side Story”) and Joel and Ethan Coen (“No Country for Old Men”). During his acceptance speech, Scheinert paid homage to mothers around the world.
Despite the movie industry being flooded with sequels and reboots, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” helped Hollywood move past one of the most infamous Oscar moments: The Slap. In his third year as host, Jimmy Kimmel promised a “no nonsense” ceremony. He said anyone wishing to “get jiggy with it” this year had to go through a fearsome battalion of bodyguards, including Yeoh, Steven Spielberg, and Guillermo Rodriguez, his show’s “security guards.”
ack tears during his acceptance speech. Quan, who was once a successful child actor known for his roles in popular films like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Goonies,” made a triumphant return to acting by winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in the indie hit film “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Despite having given up on acting before landing this role, Quan’s win was one of the most anticipated moments of the night and left many moved. The emotional highlight came when he received a standing ovation from the audience – which included none other than Steven Spielberg, director of “Temple of Doom” – as he gave an emotional acceptance speech while holding back tears.
“Mom, I just won an Oscar!” said Quan, 51, whose family fled Vietnam during the war when he was a child. “They say stories like this only happen in movies. I can’t believe it’s happening. “This is the American dream.”
