Everything Everywhere All at Once - 11 nominations

 

Best Original Screenplay Dan Kwan Daniel Scheinert

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) Son Lux

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) Ryan Lott David Byrne Mitski For song "This Is a Life"

Best Motion Picture of the Year Dan Kwan (producer) Daniel Scheinert (producer) Jonathan Wang (producer)

Best Achievement in Directing Dan Kwan Daniel Scheinert

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Michelle Yeoh

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Stephanie Hsu

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Jamie Lee Curtis

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Ke Huy Quan

Best Achievement in Costume Design Shirley Kurata

Best Achievement in Film Editing Paul Rogers

Mothers and daughters, amiright?  (For the record, my mother - who reads this blog - is the absolute best.)

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the multiverse movie we needed.  It is weird.  It is wild. And it is spectacular. It is another Best Picture nominee whose entire principal cast is nominated for Oscars, and that's because the performances were just that good, and each person played the same person but like 14 different people as themselves.  Get it?  (Ok, that's fair... confusing is the way the multiverse cookie crumbles.)

Let's see how much of this nearly indescribable film I can describe.  Evelyn Quan runs a laundromat with her husband Waymond.  They are Chinese immigrants who have a daughter, Joy.  Joy is eager to introduce her white girlfriend to her family and especially her grandfather, but Evelyn is reluctant thinking that they are just not ready to learn of Joy's relationship, and minimizes the introduction to be Joy's "friend."  For a daughter seeking connection and to be truly seen and valued for who she is, this is a difficult moment to navigate.  

Meanwhile, the laundromat is being audited by the IRS.  When the family goes to the building to meet with their unsympathetic IRS agent Dierdre, the multiverse is opened to Evelyn, and she learns that every choice in one's history sends that Evelyn down another path with very different outcomes.  We learn of a "big bad enemy" Jobu who is simultaneously experiencing all of her own timelines at once, and Jobu has figured out how to destroy the world with an "Everything Bagel black hole" to relieve herself of her own misery and chaotic life.  Evelyn is endowed with powers to fight the big bad (and that itself is it's own cool explanation), and we are taken on a tour of her many alternate lives only for her to realize that love and acceptance is what is required to heal this crazy situation.  (no spoilers, but these alternate universes produce some VERY creative and fantastic scenes.)

The day I saw this film, I pronounced it the winner of the Costume Design category (THERE IS A SHIRT MADE OUT OF TEDDY BEARS, YOU GUYS), and I thought surely a nomination for Production Design, as well.  With nominations in all of the possible "top of the line" categories, this little film could take the big prize.  This is one you absolutely don't want to miss in any of your alternate timelines.