2023 Oscars chose wrong best picture in 'Everything Everywhere'

It will surprise few people and interest fewer to hear that the motion picture academy’s choice for best picture of the year was a far cry from my own. I’ve been asking myself these and other questions since last March, not long after “Everything Everywhere All at Once” premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and unfurled the story — or stories — of Evelyn Wang, a dismally unfulfilled Chinese American laundromat owner who saves the multiverse by harnessing the power of many, vastly more successful parallel-universe Evelyns and enacting momentous reconciliations with her long-suffering husband, Waymond ; her estranged lesbian daughter, Joy ; her perpetually disappointed father ; and even her alternately grouchy and murderous IRS auditor, Deirdre. Even before the night began, “Everything Everywhere” had already helped make Oscar history with its acting nominations for Yeoh, Quan and Hsu — which, combined with Hong Chau’s supporting actress nomination for “The Whale,” made for a record four acting nominees of Asian descent in a given year. Quan gave as nakedly emotional a speech as he’s given all season long, choking back tears as he described his moment as “the American dream.” Most deservedly of all — and yes, even this “EEAAO”-gnostic let out a cheer — Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman and only the second woman of color ever to win an Oscar for lead actress, a milestone as thrilling as it is ridiculous in over nine decades of the Academy Awards’ existence. The more I’ve thought about “Everything Everywhere,” for all its undeniable representational significance, the more traditional a best picture winner it seems.