Oscars predictions are a surprisingly straightforward guessing game. You look at the winners of awards whose voting pools overlap with the Academy’s, and then you extrapolate. If a film has taken home prizes from the Producers Guild, the Writers Guild (WGA), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the Directors Guild, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), then it’s reasonable to assume it will take home the Oscar, too.
This year’s major awards leading into Oscars Sunday have painted a clear picture of what’s to come. It seems a foregone conclusion that “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the maximalist all-genre epic from directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, will have a big night. The question is, how big a night will it be?
A scene from "Everything Everywhere All at Once," Danny's pick for best picture. From left, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan (his pick for best supporting actor), Michelle Yeoh (his pick for best actress), and James Hong. (Courtesy photos)
Best Picture: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'
Rarely has a movie enjoyed such massive and sustained acclaim as “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which premiered this time last year and, even with the short attention span of modern pop culture discourse, still has not faded from view. It’s not hard to see why; as its name implies, the movie offers something for everyone. It’s a family drama about a mother and daughter learning to connect; it’s a slice-of-life comedy about the Chinese-American immigrant experience; it’s a sci-fi novelty, an action flick, and, beneath all the noise, a meditation on nihilism and optimism in a world full of distractions. You can argue whether it deserves the top award of the year (would any of us ever have imagined that the film poised to win Best Picture would feature an extended joke about people with hot dogs for fingers?) but its win is all but decided.
Directors Daniel Kwan (right) and Daniel Scheinert.
Best Director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’.
With the Directors Guild award under their belt already, Kwan and Scheinert are the favorites for the directing Oscar. That the Academy is likely to reward their outré, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style is, one hopes, a harbinger of a wider embrace of the experimental, as well as a recognition that the highbrow and the lowbrow are often one and the same. That’s not to say a win for a different nominee would be undeserved—Todd Field’s engrossing drama “Tár” demonstrates, by contrast, the power of cinematic minimalism and omission—but as with the Best Picture race, the directing award is Kwan and Scheinert’s to lose.
Brendan Fraser in "The Whale."
Best Actor/Actress: Brendan Fraser, ‘The Whale’; Michelle Yeoh, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’
Most years, the BAFTAs (considered the “British Oscars”) serve as a good predictor of the Academy Awards, but this year’s BAFTAs have differed from every other major awards show in every major category. So while the lead acting BAFTAs went to Austin Butler (“Elvis”) and Cate Blanchett (“Tár”), the Academy looks like it will match the Screen Actors Guild and bestow its top honors to Brendan Fraser for his role as an overweight recluse in “The Whale” and to Michelle Yeoh for her performance as the laundromat-owning, multiverse-hopping mother at the center of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Cate Blanchett, it seems, will have to wait a bit longer for her third Oscar.
Jamie Lee Curtis in "Everything Everywhere All At Once."
Best Supporting Actor/Actress: Ke Huy Quan/Jamie Lee Curtis, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” swept the SAG supporting actor awards, and I have no reason to suspect the Oscars ceremony will go any differently. As a fanny pack-wearing dad and frumpy IRS auditor, respectively, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis play into the movie’s anything-goes ethos with verve, but they shine just as brightly in moments of quiet reserve. And while a win for either actor would be welcome, it’s worth acknowledging that BAFTA winners Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon, both of “The Banshees of Inisherin,” are responsible for two of the most endearing and heartbreaking performances of the year and would be equally deserving of recognition.
Best Original/Adapted Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’; Sarah Polley, ‘Women Talking’
Sarah Polley’s Writers Guild award for her adapted screenplay of “Women Talking,” a drama set among the women in a Mennonite community, suggests she’ll take home the corresponding Oscar. The original screenplay category is more of a toss-up, between “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.” (“Banshees” was left out of the WGA nominees due to strict nomination rules.) At the risk of betting against the juggernaut of the evening, I’m picking Martin McDonagh’s tragicomedy about life on a remote island in 1920s Ireland for the original screenplay prize, but don’t be surprised if “Everything Everywhere” scoops up this one as well.
Danny Eisenberg grew up in Harvard and has been reviewing movies for the Harvard Press since 2010. He lives and works in Denver, Colorado.
