Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
How does one follow up a film about a flatulent corpse accompanying a man lost at sea? By making a film about a woman doing her taxes, of course.
But with the filmmaking duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – otherwise known as the Daniels – things are never so simple. The relatively straightforward logline explodes into the infinity of the multiverse, complete with hot dog fingers and dildos, but ultimately emphasizes the importance of love and compassion in a universe of seemingly careless chaos.
“The biggest seed that drove us through, that felt like a metaphor for what we’re going through right now in society, is just this information overload, this stretching,” Kwan says in the film’s press notes. “People keep saying ‘empathy fatigue’ set in with covid, but I feel like even before covid we were already there—there’s too much to care about and everyone’s lost the thread. That was the last key, turning this into a movie about empathy in the chaos.”
The idea for the six-time Golden Globe nominee film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, started back in 2016, with the original draft featuring a male lead before bringing in actress Michelle Yeoh. “I love working with younger directors because they don’t see you in the conventional way,” Yeoh says. “They want to peel that onion and see what other layers there are, and then start throwing crazy things at you.”
After deciding to focus the script on a female protagonist, the Daniels felt that the script locked into place. They found themselves pulling inspiration for Evelyn from their own mothers. “It really felt like the script came alive when it became about the mom and it was Michelle as the lead,” says Scheinert. “That got real scary because we literally couldn’t think of anyone else if she said no. Or if we found out that Michelle Yeoh is a terrible person, then the movie dies.”
Ke Huy Quan, nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor for his role as the loving Waymond, returns to the screen after a long absence. “I saw [Crazy Rich Asians] and I told myself, if you ever wanted to get back into acting, now would be the time, because times have changed,” Quan recalls. Soon after, he asked his friend to be his agent, and “a week later we got a call to audition for this,” he says. “The timing was just impeccable. And I was super nervous because I haven’t auditioned for over 25 years.”
From the beginning, the Daniels were influenced by statement-making actions films like Fight Club and The Matrix, as well as Hong Kong kung-fu flicks by Jackie Chan. The Daniels knew they wanted to make a maximalist movie but were also aware of their tight budget. Thanks to their experience working on countless music videos, the duo was able to work around the financial and physical constraints they encountered while shooting and editing. The outcome is a truly bizarre labor of love that speaks to the absurdity of life as we know it.