Mission accomplished: a slap-free Oscars. As in a factory where, at the end of each day, the number of days without accidents is noted on a board, presenter Jimmy Kimmel noted, leaving the stage of the Dolby Theater on Sunday March 12: “1 ceremony without incident. Will Smith was banned, after his gesture against comedian Chris Rock last year, and everyone behaved well in Hollywood – despite the show’s always excessive length (over 3:30).
So nothing came to disturb the unchallenged triumph of Everything Everywhere All at Once: Best Picture, Best Direction and Original Screenplay for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh, Best Supporting Actors for Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan, best editing. Seven awards for eleven nominations.
Voters were not put off by the original and puzzling construction of the feature film, which traces the immigrant experience in an unprecedented way through the story of Evelyn Wang, the washed-up boss of a laundromat. And they’ve taken a giant step for Asian representation in Hollywood (Parasite may have won the Oscar in 2020, but it was a South Korean film): so far, only four actors or actresses from of Asian origin had been rewarded. Michelle Yeoh did not fail to thank the Academy for “all the little boys and girls who look like me and are watching tonight. It’s a beacon of hope and possibility.”
But the success of Everything Everywhere All at Once also allowed the Oscars to salute genre film figures often ignored by the Academy. Jamie Lee Curtis, first, who cut his teeth in horror (Halloween) and comedy (True Lies) and was not mistaken: “To all the people who have supported genre films that I have done over all these years, these thousands, these hundreds of thousands of people. We just won an Oscar together! But also Michelle Yeoh, action movie superstar (Tiger and Dragon). Both were nominated for the first time, aged over 60 – “Ladies, don’t let anyone tell you you’re not fresh anymore,” Michelle Yeoh commented.
“This is the American Dream”
Representation, therefore, but also redemption for Brendan Fraser, fallen comedy star – “I have long chosen the easy way”, he admitted -, who ended his long crossing of the desert with The Whale by Darren Aronofsky and an Oscar for best actor. The film did not receive a good reception from critics, but its interpreter touched the voters.
To complete this Hollywood ceremony, all that was missing was the American dream, that of Ke Huy Quan, a child in Indiana Jones and the Goonies, who had abandoned the sets. The Vietnamese-born actor recalled that his “journey began on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp and I find myself here on the biggest stage in Hollywood. They say stories like this only happen in movies. I can’t believe this is happening to me. That’s the American dream.”
In short, Hollywood has made Hollywood, even if it means forgetting Steven Spielberg and his Fabelmans who leave empty-handed, like Cate Blanchett and Tar. Sarah Polley gets the prize for best adaptation for Women Talking, but only A l’Ouest, rien de nouveau, by Edward Berger, managed to exist in the face of the tornado Everything… with four prizes, including that of the best foreign movie. Netflix suddenly saved face behind independent studio A24 (which produced Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Whale, nine awards in total), and won a total of six awards.
And the ceremony? “At this stage of the show, we miss the slaps a bit,” acknowledged its presenter two-thirds of the way through. A lot of seriousness, like Lady Gaga in a simple t-shirt and black ripped jeans to interpret the Top Gun song. maverick. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was denied an intervention, but the documentary about Russian opponent Alexei Navalny won an award, prompting calls for peace.
The only fantasy came, again, from Asia, thanks to the irruption on the scene of Bollywood, or rather Tollywood (the Indian film industry in the Telugu language). The interpretation of the song Naatu Naatu from the film RRR won the audience before delighting the Oscar from Rihanna and Lady Gaga, therefore. Their authors found it hard to believe. But that too is the American dream.
