Weird: Every Single Oscar Voter I’ve Spoken To Does Not Like ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’

At some point in the early summer there was this sense that Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once” would have a tough road ahead in its Oscar hopes.

Then ‘Everything Everywhere’ topped our mid-year critics poll, appearing on 40% of the lists submitted. It also, slow but surely, became an indie smash at the box-office, and A24’s highest-grossing movie of all-time with a cumulative intake of $101 million.

And so, here we are, many months later, and it’s practically a lock for a Best Picture nomination. We are being told or, are supposed to believe, that a 142 minute movie about multiverses, taxes, millennial angst and over-the-top visual nothingness is going to be a hit with the AMPAS voting body (average demographic over 50, white, and male). I believe voters will go with the current and nominate the damn thing, but mostly because a vocal cabal of industry people have been banging the EEAO,drums ever strongly for nearly 8 months now.

You can have regional critics and film twitter banding together and celebrating this idiotic movie, but their cheerleading won’t necessarily convince Oscar voters.

Part of the reason why I’ve been skeptical about ‘Everything Everywhere’ winning Best Picture is that I actually talk to Oscar voters on a regular basis and I find the passion for this film, at least with those I’ve spoken to, to being completely muted. It’s gone beyond bafflement at this point and straight into being ridiculed by some of these voters. They just don’t like it.

Roger Friedman, who knows his fair share of Oscar voters as well, doesn’t seem to get the buzz either. He’s spoken to a slew of voters and they don’t know why this is being hyped up as a potential Best Picture winner:

“Almost no one I know actually thinks this is an Oscar movie. I know some people are passionate about it. But the typical Academy voter obviously does not find “EE” understandable. And while I think Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan may get nominations, I don’t think they will win.”

I’m mostly in agreement with Roger, but Quan will maybe win. He has a great narrative behind him and his performance is far and away the best thing about EEAO.

There was a big surprise on Thursday when the Oscar shortlists were announced: “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” was not in the Visual Effects shortlist. This for a film very much driven by VFX. If EEAO is not going to be in the mix for that, I don’t see how it can win Best Picture. So this may be a real stumbling block. We’ll see.