Oscars 2023: ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ wins directing, screenplay and editing awards
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” picked up momentum in the final hour of the Academy Awards with Oscars for best original screenplay, film editing and director to add to earlier wins in both supporting actor and actress.
The writer-director team of “Everything Everywhere,” Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, gave acceptance speeches almost as entertaining as their film.
“I had a fantasy as a kid winning an award and going up and telling off all the teachers who gave me detention,” Scheinert said after the duo won for original screenplay.
He didn’t – that was just a joke, he clarified – and actually went on to thank the teachers who mentored him, inspired him, and “taught me to be less of a butthead.”
When they returned a few minutes later to accept the Oscar for best director, Kwan delivered a heartfelt speech about the teamwork and collaboration that helped him and Scheinert lead “Everything Everywhere” to the success that it found.
“I just want to go back to my original point,” Kwan said in wrapping up. “There is greatness in every single person. You have a genius that is waiting to erupt. You just have to find the right key to help you unlock it.”
Best adapted screenplay went to Sarah Polley, the writer-director of “Women Talking,” whose drama about women in a religious colony deciding how to respond to sexual abuse within their community was also a best picture nominee.
“First, I want to thank the Academy for not being offended by the words ‘women’ and ‘talking’ so close together like that,” Polley said to laughter from the audience in the Dolby Theatre.
She then referenced the last line in the movie, spoken by a young mother to her daughter –.”Your story will be different than ours” – and said that she wants that to be true for her daughters and all girls in women in succeeding generations.
After “Top Gun: Maverick” won the Oscar for best sound, “Naatu Naatu,” the infectious dance number from the Indian film “RRR” won the Academy Award for best original song. Songwriter M.M. Keeravani opened his acceptance by noting that he’d grown up listening to the Carpenters – bet you didn’t see that coming.
He then charmed viewers by singing an “RRR”-inspired adaptation of the Carpenters’ “Top of the World,” which included the lyrics, “‘RRR’ has to win, pride of every Indian / and that’s put me on the top of the world.”