Judging by “Everything is everywhere and at once” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 41 (7486) dated 03/11/2023

This Sunday (Moscow time – early Monday morning) in Los Angeles, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present the Oscars for the 95th time. This year’s most prestigious film awards are vying for 54 films, from box office champions to modest independent projects. The chances of applicants in the main nominations are weighed Yulia Shagelman.

For the American film industry, 2022 was the year of the long-awaited return of audiences to theaters after a two-year pause caused by the pandemic. This is evident even in the list of nominees in the main Oscar category “Best Picture”, where four out of ten applicants are box office champions: the highest-grossing film of the past year “Top Gun: Maverick” by Joseph Kosinski, “Avatar: The Way of Water” by James Cameron, ” Elvis” by Baz Luhrmann and “Everything Everywhere” by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, which earned just over $100 million, which is not much in absolute terms, but is amazing for an absurdist indie film with a budget four times smaller. Perhaps this will allow the Academy to stop the steady decline in the ratings of the Oscar ceremony and return the viewer to the TV screens where it will be broadcast, as they finally have someone to root for.

But as much as Steven Spielberg credits producer and Top Gun star Tom Cruise for “saving the industry’s ass,” out of its six nominations, the film can only win in the category “Best Sound” and, perhaps, ” Best Editing, where, however, she has a powerful competitor – Everything Everywhere and At Once (the editors of both films were awarded by their professional guild). “Avatar” is seriously considered only in the nomination “Best Visual Effects”.

The winner of the Oscars, judging by the dynamics of the award season, promises to be just “Everything Everywhere and At Once”, which at the time of its release last spring was perceived more as a curious thing in itself, and in a year turned into an avalanche sweeping away everything on its way, and nominated in 11 categories. This is only the fifth film in history to win awards from the four major professional guilds: producers (PGA), directors (DGA), actors (SAG) and writers (WGA), and all its predecessors in this situation became the best films of the year according to academics. Given the support of many more less significant awards, this logic is unlikely to be broken this year.

The guild awards also point to the near-inevitability of the directing-writing duo of the two Daniels to win their respective awards. Having managed to get around such strong (and, what is there, more worthy) rivals like Spielberg (“Fabelmans”), Todd Field (“Tar”) and Martin McDona (“Banshee Inisherina”), they can become the third on Sunday – and the most young – the Oscar-winning directorial duet in history, as well as pick up the prize for the best original screenplay.

However, at the current Oscars, there is still an intrigue that makes even experienced experts worry, and it unfolds in acting nominations. Here we can only speak with confidence about the victory of Ke Hui Kuan (“Everything Everywhere and At Once”) in the category “Best Supporting Actor”. Playing his first role at the age of 13 with Spielberg, and then being out of work for over 20 years until the Daniels rediscovered him, he managed to move all of Hollywood with his story and collect almost all the awards of the season. And now he can calmly rehearse the Oscar speech, while his colleagues will have to be nervous right up to the X hour.

So, the SAG award brought unexpected chaos to the nomination “Best Supporting Actress”, where Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) had previously been in the lead. The Actors Guild chose Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere and At Once) over her, and now the Oscar can go to both the latter and her co-star Stephanie Xu. Or even Kerry Condon (Banshee Inisherina), if the other contenders take away each other’s votes.

There were three frontrunners in the Best Actor nomination, but after losing to Colin Farrell (Banshee Inisherina) at the BAFTA, two remained: Austin Butler (Elvis) and Brendan Fraser (Keith). The Academy loves not only biopics, but also heartfelt comeback stories (and Fraser also returned to the spotlight after a long break); external transformations, such as those both actors underwent for the role, also usually impress her. Butler has a Golden Globe and BAFTA, Fraser has Critic’s Choice Awards and SAG. However, Elvis, unlike The Whale, is nominated for Best Picture, and that could play into the hands of the younger contender, unless the academics throw a last-minute surprise at Farrell.

A similar picture is in the Best Actress category, where Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere and At Once”) and Cate Blanchett (“Tar”) compete, and the rest of the nominees need not worry. Both favorites already have Golden Globes each, Blanchett has BAFTAs and Critic’s Choice Awards, Yeoh has SAGs, as well as the political weight that could hold the first Oscar in history for an Asian actress and just the second for a non-white actress in general. . In favor of what the academicians will lean towards – pure talent and professionalism, or their own, but backed up by the current agenda, it will become clear only on March 12.