Oscars 2023: EEAAO wins almost everything, everywhere, and other historic moments
Eli Glasner, Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Alison Willmore unpack the wins and losses from Hollywood’s big night
At last night's Academy Awards ceremony, it would seem that A24's instant cult classic Everything Everywhere All At Once was indeed true to its name. The film won the majority of the categories it was nominated for, including four of the Big Five categories.
Film critics Eli Glasner, Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Alison Willmore joined host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about the night's historic wins, surprises and losses.
We've included some highlights below for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player
Elamin: Last night, Michelle Yeoh finally got her flowers at the Oscars. She won a really tight race for best actress for her role in Everything Everywhere All At Once, which cleaned up last night. It won seven out of 11 categories. That's a pretty good tally. Alison, I'm going to start with you on this one.… What did it feel like to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once win both best picture and categories like best actress?
Alison: Oh, it felt amazing. Beyond the many milestones this movie has represented, I think just seeing a movie that is so not the formula for what an Oscar movie is, that is so weird, it's so vital, it's funny, it's messy. It's very heartfelt, and also completely ridiculous. And yeah, it came out in April. I think anything that can break open this really kind of calcified world of, "This is when Oscar movies come out. This is what they look like." I loved seeing it do so well, and also getting so much support. It just felt like a sign of good things.
Elamin: Kathleen, I'll tell you this: if you want to win an Oscar, you don't release your movie in April. That's typically not the season to release the big heavy hitters.… Then you get this moment last night where Halle Berry, who's of course the first Black woman to win best actress way back in 2002, she escorts Michelle Yeoh off the stage after that acceptance speech. What did that moment feel like, watching?
Kathleen: Oh, it was a beautiful moment and it was one of the highlights of the night for me, for sure. The visual of them together is so powerful, and you could tell it was an emotional moment for both of them. For me, it was kind of this walking reminder of how rare these moments are on that stage. As you said, they're the two only women of colour to win best actress; they're both firsts — Halle the first Black woman 21 years ago, and now Michelle, the first Asian woman. And those stats should be embarrassing for the Academy.
This is, yes, a moment of earnest celebration, and it's easy to make this a shiny win for diversity and pat the Academy on the back, but the fact is that these wins are the exception, not the rule.… I hope that this moment means that we're going to get more women of colour being recognized in this way and that Michelle is just the first of many. But, I also thought that 21 years ago with Halle Berry.
Elamin: That's fair. Eli, I actually want you to put me in the room, because you were there. As we're getting this big moment for Everything Everywhere All At Once, what did it feel like in the room?
Eli: It was electric. It's really interesting because you're in this press room with 300 members of the international media. When I arrived, people were telling me Michelle was going to lose to Cate [Blanchett], that Everything Everywhere All At Once was just too much for some of the voters, so there was a lot of cynicism in that room. But I think a lot of people were rooting for Michelle Yeoh. When she won, a cheer erupted. When she came backstage, people stood up and it was such an ovation, she kind of quipped, "Is this the media? Am I in the right place?"
She has been carrying the mantle of what this means for herself, for Asian actors, for so long, and been making variations on the same kind of speech. But to do it with aplomb, and she said like, "kung fu kicking the glass ceiling" and what this means for all minorities, you could see that she was ready and she was enjoying it. As you said, Kathleen, hopefully more to come. I mean, that's what the Daniels talked about. But I have to say, seeing James Hong on the red carpet and seeing him get his flowers, seeing the crowd erupt as he went by, I just saw him with his family and that was a little moment that for myself, I just kind of tucked that away. That was just such a beautiful thing to witness.
Elamin: Allison, I've got to ask you about the Daniels. Everything Everywhere All At Once is co-directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, and in their acceptance speech [for best director, they talked about] this notion that genius emerges from the collective. To me, it's one of the stories of the night because this best director award typically goes to people that we brand as auteurs, and to have the people who just accepted this big award in the night sort of destroy that myth a little bit felt like a turning moment, for me, in Hollywood.
Alison: I think it's easy to get cynical sometimes when people go up and say, "This is a win for all of us," and you're like, "Yeah, but you're holding the trophy up there." But I think in this case, this was a very heartfelt way to put this idea that a movie takes the work of so many people and, like all art, it doesn't just kind of rise up in a vacuum.… Even their partnership is itself rare; it's usually just one person, it's about this idea of a singular voice and a singular genius, and that doesn't really reflect how movies are made. They are the work of so many people working together. To have someone really be like, "This was a group effort" — not just the making of this movie, but the very ideas behind it — I think there is something very lovely about that, and I really appreciated that they said it.
Eli: And Elamin, if I can jump in, they started in music videos and they said, "We basically kept the same people that we've been making music videos with." And so, they have this amazing kind of iconic style that seems like Marvel but handmade at the same time, and I think part of that is — and great directors do this — they find their own kind of group and they keep them, because they understand each other, and that's part of that magic of that film.
Elamin: I'm glad that you mentioned that because I have to sort of live with the reality that the guys who made the music video for Lil Jon's Turn Down for What just won best director.
Eli: Yes!
Elamin: And that's a lot for me to digest. I've seen that music video a lot, and I don't go—
Eli: What, you're not going to play a clip? C'mon.
Elamin: I don't look at— no, I certainly don't look at that music video—
Kathleen: How often are you watching Turn Down for What, Elamin?
Elamin: Every day, Kathleen. That's my wake-up song.
Eli: Hey, yeah — how do you get out of bed?
Elamin: Yeah, exactly right. Alison, I want to come back to A24 really quickly because they're the studio that made Everything Everywhere All At Once. A24 has not been around for that long. A24 won best picture with Moonlight in 2017. They had six movies at the Oscars this year; they were the most-nominated studio. I don't understand how A24 has managed to create this brand in such a short period of time. How do people have a relationship with a movie studio? Has this ever happened before? I feel weird about it.
Alison: Yeah, they have unfortunately great merch which does feel—
Elamin: They do!
Alison: It's kind of key.
Elamin: The merch really goes, I'm not going to lie to you. It's good.
Alison: But I think that they have been really smart about working with emerging filmmakers and talent, and really nurturing directors and working with them again and again early on in their careers, which I think has been part of the secret. But I think also in this case, they found filmmakers right at this moment where they had this idea that I think was not by any means a sure bet, if you're going around pitching this concept to studios.
Elamin: You don't say, yeah.
Alison: And [A24 was] like, "We're going to go all in on this," you know? They gave it a lot of support even through award season, and they're not necessarily an established Oscar studio. I think that their branding is very smart, but they've earned a lot of that loyalty through just the quality of the movies that they've supported. They have excellent taste, and I think it's hard not to kind of sign on to them a bit.
Elamin: I have to say that, there's plenty of evidence, if you look closely last night, that the Oscars and Hollywood is changing. I'm relieved to have all three of you here. Eli, Alison, Kathleen, thank you so much for guiding me through the post-Oscars mess on very little sleep. I appreciate you. Thank you.
Eli: My pleasure.
Kathleen: Thanks, Elamin!
Alison: Thanks.
Elamin: Eli Glasner is a senior entertainment reporter at CBC. Kathleen Newman-Bremang is deputy director at Refinery29 Unbothered. Alison Willmore is a film critic at Vulture.
You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.
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