"Everything Everywhere All at Once" is the movie American Film Culture Needed
A mastery of creative freedom
If you haven’t watched “Everything Everywhere All at Once” yet, you’ve probably at least heard about all the awards it has been winning for the filmmakers and actors. From directing to acting and beyond, it has gained massive interest from fans of science fiction, drama, action genres and beyond. And for many great reasons.
It features an award-winning cast lead by Michelle Yeoh with Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Su, and even Jamie Lee Curtis who takes on a massive transformation as well as many other recognizable actors. And is directed by the dynamic duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert aka “The Daniels.”
Before we go further, I want to add a special note here that I may be biased because I had the great fortune of working on the film and made a small flash of an appearance in a few of the scenes.
Aside from the huge topic of social issues in Hollywood, namely better representation of minorities and diverse stories, the film feels critical in timing as far as American Film Culture goes.
Action films have been dominated by Marvel and DC. Drama has been favoring Korean filmmakers and television dramas. And Japanese film culture has been known for its remarkable creativity that some might even call “too bizarre for American award nomination tastes.” The typical awards tend to go to stories that feel “broodingly dramatic,” slow burns, or they provide some deeply moving metaphor for life. Rarely are they ever “funny” or “quirky.”
Don’t get me wrong, America has always been known for having the greatest film culture on the planet. But after so many decades, it’s no secret that to win the awards, you have to impress the elite industry influencers makers who often want and expect a certain type of story. To explore outside that lane of what can feel formulaic basically means no awards for them.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” showed that American filmmakers can make great stories that are smart, dramatic, provide soup for the soul, and quirky by taking risks. Plus, they can get awards for them too! Hopefully this pushes more filmmakers to take risks to make interesting films like this.
It’s a challenge to hit all those marks, and in just the right time. In another time, a science fiction story, with characters who had sausage fingers, who used butt plugs as weapons, which included LGBTQ+ subjects as well as minorities as the leads, would never have been taken seriously.
The combination is tough to find in such a good mix. Sometimes a movie is too weird to be taken seriously and instead becomes a cult classic. Or the film concept wants to win awards, therefore the filmmakers don’t take risks that provide a fresh “flavor” of entertainment. Or the movie is simply too deep with meaning that it’s just hard for people to watch.
”Everything Everywhere All at Once” has some confusing moments due to its multiple timeline and universe subject matter. But by the end, we feel we’ve been taken on an incredible journey with relatable family themes from growing up and getting through angsty teenage years to addressing our fears of missing out and the question of “what if I had done something else with my life?”
The film is a mastery of creative freedom and storytelling. Creative freedom in the sense that it feels incredibly bold in execution, unlike the typical award-winner which might stray from a formula in terms of their plot, but still “feels” similar emotionally to many others. But to weave this complexity together is definitely quite the feat. A feat which deserves all the recognition it’s receiving and will receive. And hopefully it will also inspire more filmmakers to experiment giving us new ways to laugh, cry, and everything in between.