Oscars 2023: An underdog story unlike any other

Even though Shaunak Sen’s festival favourite documentary feature All That Breathes returned home without the coveted golden trophy, white dancers performed to Naatu Naatu at the ceremony instead of Ram Charan and NTR Jr, and The Banshees of Inisherin didn’t win as big as it should have, the Academy Awards this year were a celebration of the underdogs.

That an audacious, radical, subversive, weird, and brilliantly original film like Everything Everywhere All at Once exists at all is enough of a miracle. For it to bag 11 Oscar nominations and win seven of them in major categories is plain bizarre. I mean, who would have anticipated such a glorious, unrivaled sweep-in? By the time they got up on stage to receive the final award for Best Picture, the Daniels were delirious. So was everyone, everywhere around the world who had been rooting for this moment for decades and almost willed it into existence.

When a Daniel Kwan or a Ke Huy Quan wins, every immigrant who has strived relentlessly for a better future wins. When a Michelle Yeoh wins, the undying ambition of ageing women wins. When a Jamie Lee Curtis wins, perseverance wins. When a Telugu song or an Indian documentary short about elephants in Tamil Nadu wins, diversity wins. When a Brender Fraser wins, second chances win. And when an Everything Everywhere All at Once wins, the belief that no dream is too big or ridiculous and no distance too far wins.

Instead of honouring the Meryl Streeps and the Daniel Day Lewises yet again (no offense to them, they are terrific actors, but there are others too), the Oscars this year decided to look at the new, the divergent, the coloured, and the underrated, making a sincere attempt to keep up with the rapidly changing sociocultural narrative. It was a joy to listen to acceptance speeches that didn’t feel rehearsed, and to see winners not just own their quirks, diverse backgrounds, and humble beginnings, but also celebrate them and the countless faceless people who handheld them to this moment.

Rare authenticity and aching vulnerability underlined most thank-you monologues; never before had I seen winners stutter, that too on the world’s biggest stage, holding tight to their singular voice shaky with emotion, not letting the blinding arc lights and the deafening noise drown it. It was a privilege to see stars in the making.

But as phantasmagorical as its Academy Award loot is, it’s true that Everything Everywhere All at Once did not need the Oscars as much as the Oscars needed it. To ensure that it continues to stay relevant and to let the world know that it has finally opened the floodgates and created more room—for colours other than white, unheard voices, madcap crazies, and obscure stories—age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, scale, experience no bar.

Accepting the award for best director, Daniel Scheinert said, “Our fellow nominees, you guys are heroes, this is weird.” It was. Because the other nominees in the category included Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans), Todd Field (Tár), Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness). This shift in the story was long overdue. What’s heartening to see is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences embracing it before too late. For once, but Oscars95 was a night of the dreamers. It brought to the stage people that are often not invited to the party. Or if at all, relegated to the corners. It gave them a chance to speak. And the world listened as it had never before.