The New Yorker Radio Hour - Stephanie Hsu on “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; and the 2023 Brody Awards

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is in a genre all its own, and is an extremely unlikely favorite for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It’s a loopy sci-fi quest that becomes a martial arts revenge battle, superimposed on a sentimental family drama. Stephanie Hsu plays both Joy, a depressed young woman struggling with her immigrant mother (played by Michelle Yeoh), and Jobu Tupaki, an interdimensional supervillain bent on sowing chaos, and possibly the end of the world.  “The relationship between Evelyn and Joy in its simplest terms is very fraught,” Hsu tells the staff writer Jia Tolentino. “It’s the story of a relationship of a daughter who’s a lesbian who is deeply longing for her mother’s acceptance . . . but they keep chasing each other around in the universe and they can just never find one another. Until, of course, they launch into the multiverse and become nemeses.” The film is nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress, for Hsu’s performance.  Plus, in a New Yorker Radio Hour annual tradition, the incorruptible film critic Richard Brody bequeaths the awards that really matter: the Brody Awards, recognizing the finest performances and the best picture of 2022. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The Oscars will be given out soon, and among the Best Picture nominees, and there are a lot of them, is the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. And in many ways, it seems the most surprising film, and it's considered a real front-runner. It's not an earnest drama, a magnificent spectacle, or a beloved nostalgia remake. Everything, Everywhere All at Once is really a genre unto itself, a loopy science fiction quest that somehow evolves into a martial arts revenge battle,

and it's crossed with a sentimental family drama of a mother and a daughter trying to understand each other. Michelle Yeo is nominated for Best Actress playing Evelyn, the hapless owner of a laundromat. Stephanie Shue is nominated for supporting actress playing her depressed daughter Joy, and is also the film's deranged supervillain Jobu. The relationship between Evelyn and Joy, in its simplest terms, is very fraught. It is a story of a relationship of a daughter who's a lesbian, who is deeply longing for her mother's acceptance. But they keep chasing each other around in the universe,

and they can just never find one another, until, of course, they launch into the multiverse and become nemeses. Stephanie Shoe spoke last spring just after the movie came out with Gia Tolentino, a staff writer at The New Yorker. So much about the world seems just extremely overwhelming and bad and broken. You know, every time you look at your phone, you're reminded by nightmare social media of the nightmare situation in Ukraine and the housing crisis and the unending pandemic and just sort of injustice wherever you look, right? and we all feel this all the time. But one of the things that people have responded to so strongly in everything everywhere is that the movie seems to sketch out some sort of standpoint about how to live in a world

that is overwhelming and bad and broken, right? How to value that world and love that world despite and even because it's that way. And I wonder, how would you describe the movie's perspective on all of that? Wow. Gia, that was such a beautiful articulation. of this moment in time, as well as how it relates to our movie. You know, honestly, in some ways, it's been really surreal because we shot this film before the pandemic, right?

And we could not have possibly known how much the world was going to need our little offering. But I have to say, you know, there's my biggest conflict with being an actor or being a part, of this industry is sometimes like, I fear that what we do is not enough or that how is it possible when there's a war, when there's climate disaster, not even crisis, constant climate disaster. Everything is, it feels like it's crumbling. How is art going to help it? And I feel like the release of this film and witnessing how people are responding to it is giving me some sort of full circle healing because I think the movie's stance is like, yeah, there are a million other universes that we could be in. There are a lot of possibilities if we went right instead of left that one time.

But there's a lot that we don't know. And, you know, in some ways I think I am someone who's constantly searching for meaning. But when I was working on this project, I would say that nihilism in some ways saved my life. because if nothing matters, then it's true that we're all just trying to figure it out together. And that's in a way, I mean, that's your character, Joy. That's her journey, right? It's from starting off at a point where it feels like nothing matters, from nothing matters to it all matters. I think what I love about joy, this, you know, sort of despondent queer daughter and Jobu, a nihilistic, you know, creator of chaos goddess. and maniac is that actually something that was really important

for all of us was to make sure that the center of their beings, these two characters, were actually from the same heartbeat. So that spirit of nihilism can either pull you off the deep end

and make you feel like there's no reason to continue or it can like, you know, slingshot you into the other direction, which is I will just create as much chaos as possible because none of this matters. For you playing these two very different characters, was there anything you reached for physically or in terms of your inner process when you were switching back and forth?

What did you reach for when you needed to feel that continuity between them? I sort of think of both Joy and Jobu as hyper-hyper empaths. like I think the most important thing that I felt like I needed to share with the two characters was this really real feeling, I mean, from my own life of just overwhelm of, I mean, it's feeling the world, like the absolute weight of not only this universe, but all the universes that come before and then imagining what future lies ahead. just really tapping into that. And then for joy, you know, obviously she's a much more intimate character

and getting to play in that sort of physical manifestation of sadness or like ugliness or just wanting to be small versus Jobu. We did a lot of improvisation. And because she's kind of an omniscient being and not quite human, I was really channeling a lot of amoeba slash noodle energy of like if I were a car if Jobu was a cartoon she'd be able to like and explode into like a particle or then explode into a basketball player you know and trying to embody that availability in her physicality. You know it's funny I was going to say it's like very telling that at first when Joy comes on screen

and I had no idea that she was depressed. I was like, that's on me. I was like, oh, this is just a realistic depiction of what it's like to be a daughter of immigrants who's living in a different world than her parents. And then, like, however they was like, oh. Oh, she's not well. This movie really felt like a landmark for me

because of the exact way that it foregrounded and centered in Asian immigrant story because the movie not just mirrors but really actively explores the way that the particularities of identity feel to me. And you've talked in another interview about how you thought the film, in a way, transcended identity politics. And I wondered if you had any more thoughts on that subject. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think that there's such amazing movement that's happening in terms of

visibility. I just watched Turning Red, the new Pixar movie, and just cried, like, the whole time. I just, if I had seen that when I was a kid, my entire life, my own inner red panda of this thing that I now do with my career, I think I would have unleashed it much sooner. And so I think, you know, but it's also what I love about that movie and our movie is that it's reaching so many people

outside of just the AAPI community. I just think that beyond, it is so crucial to have conversations and specific conversations about how individuals or different cultures, grow up or grow in society. I'm looking forward to continue to like broaden our horizons so much that, you know, five, ten years from now, identity isn't something that we're using as

a flex and more of just a part of a texture of a story that is crucial and critical, but also not the only fruit that that piece bears. Yeah, I was so, you know, for all of the complexity in the million universes, right, the movie really centers on something very intimate, which is this intergenerational conveyance or non-conveyance of care and love, and specifically the relationship between a mother and a daughter. And I was so, you know, I was so moved. Michelle Yo is my mom's age. I was so moved by the centering of a suburban Asian mom and her sneakers and her bootcut weekday pants as this, you know, universe saving here. Like, that meant that felt so wonderful to me. I'm here because we need your help. Very busy today. A whole time to help you.

There's a great evil that has taken root in my world. I cannot talk now. Unless you can help me with my taxes. What is growth necklaces? I know you have a lot of things on your mind, but nothing could possibly matter more than this conversation we're having right now concerning the fate of every single world. our infinite multiverse.

Dear Evelyn, I know you. With every passing moment, you feel you might have missed your chance to make something of your life. I'm here to tell you, every rejection, every disappointment has led you here to this moment. Don't have anything distract you from it. I wanted to ask you, could I ask you about your mom's reaction to the movie? Have you watched it with her? Yeah, totally. So my mom, she came to the L.A. premiere. And she definitely wasn't like a huge advocate for me when I was growing up to be an actor. She was very puzzled by that choice or that pursuit. But she saw the movie and after I asked, she was kind of quiet and I asked her, you know, did you like it? And she's like, she just nodded behind her mask. And she's like, yes. And then she pointed to. to the movie screen.

Oh, and she goes, I cried. That's me. And it's really wild because at the, you know, of course, because I was playing joy and Joe Boo, so much of my entry point was from the point of view of a daughter. But, you know, I really, like hearing her say that, not even her saying that's you, but her saying that's me made me feel that the movie also offered her. healing too of not only her relationship with me, but also her relationship with her parents. Because, yeah, we have gongong in the picture. You know, we have the grandfather in the picture.

And it was really special. I still reflect. I'm still chewing over that interaction with her because I, I've been hearing a lot of people saying that they watch the movie or their parent, they send their parents to watch the movie. And then their parents call them and apologize. And I just think that is such a, you know, this movie, I'm proud of it for so many reasons, but the biggest gift has been that I very palpably feel that it is offering people healing. And that is all I could ever wish for for any piece of art that I put out into the world. And it's helpful to remember that art is capable of doing that, you know, to moving us into action. Yeah, I mean, you know, I was thinking about this when we were talking about the wanting to avoid the trap of reessentializing identity.

Because I feel like the whole point of valuing the particularities of anyone's identity is to, not to enshrine them in stone, but to move towards a world where everyone's identity is crucially important, but also like you understand identity is fundamentally fluid and fundamentally kind of incidental. And like, when I first started, there were, there was no crazy rich agents. There was no parasite. There was no turning red or everything everywhere, right? And I think that this movie and how it's been received is giving me permission, like really deep permission for the first time of my life to really love this thing that I do. Because I don't, I'm not a doctor. I don't have the skill sets or the gifts that I've been given. are in this little corner of the world.

And it is not, it is immense, actually. There's great responsibility in being a person who shifts culture. And so if that is the toolbox I've been given, then I better use it wisely and hold it with grace and enjoy it and celebrate it. That's Gia Tolentino, a staff writer for the New Yorker speaking with Stephanie Shue. whose performance in everything everywhere all at once is up for an Oscar, along with the film's 10 other nominations. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, and in a moment, more on the year in film with critic Richard Brody. Stick around.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Richard Brody writes the column front row for New Yorker.com, and he's a true believer in cinema with a capital C. He looks at films not as entertainment only or a storytelling, but, as a true art, maybe the art form, at least for Richard. His criticism is beloved by readers who take movies very seriously. Every year around this time, Richard joins us here to present the best films of the last year, the Brodies.

His picks often differ wildly from other award shows you might see, and we're joined in this enterprise by staff writer, Alexander Schwartz, who covers film and books and much more. Alex, Richard, great to have you. Hi, David. Hello. Alex, how are you? Well, great to see you, Richard. So here we go. This year's Academy Awards appears to be, at least superficially making a play for a more populist audience.

What do you guys make of this development? What's your overall impression of this year's nominees for Best Picture? I have the sense that the Academy membership is in a state of fear right now because of two simultaneous developments. On the one hand, the fact that the bottom has dropped out of movie viewing. There are the big champions, and then there are films that are by and large flops, only a few in the middle. And on the other hand, Oscar viewing, the broadcast viewing, has dropped out too. So that confluence of crises seems to be causing the Academy membership to put big popular films out there in the awards. Alex?

Yeah, I agree. I think fear is the right way to put it. there is a desperate whiff to all of this. It's hard to think of another year in which Top Gun shows up as a Best Picture nominee. I'm not opposed to it on its face because I don't really, I think one of the premises of the Brodies is that we don't necessarily think that the Oscars is the number one arbiter of cinematic taste. Absolutely right. So, you know, I would say that probably we're okay with saying that maybe a film getting an Oscar does not automatically seal it as, being great, and maybe a film not getting an Oscar doesn't automatically seal it as being

forgettable. If you really quizzed me hard about who won the big awards in the last three years, I'm not sure I could come close to coming up with even half of them. No, but that's the paradox of the Oscars, though the broadcast is for the general audience, the awards themselves are for the industry. And that's one of the reasons why I keep coming back to the Oscars with interest and enthusiasm. I think of it as aspirational, as a kind of futures market. It's people in the movie business telling each other and the world,

this is what we want ourselves to be, what we want our industry to be. Now we've come to the crucial moment. Let's get to the awards. The awards we're waiting for. Alex Schwartz is here with the official Brody envelopes. They were, of course, in a briefcase, handcuffed to her arm. So no one, including me, knows who the winners will be until they're announced right here on the air.

And we're going to start with Best Actor. Alex, who was nominated. The nominees for the 2023 Brody Award for Best Actor are Jeremy Pope for the inspection, Christian Bale for Amsterdam, and Jafar Panahi for No Bears. And the winner is? Jafar Panahi for No Bears.

Which is a very unusual choice because Jafar Panahy is not an actor. He is the director of No Bears, and he plays the role of Jafar Panahi. The realistic winner is Christian Baal, because he's a Hollywood actor, but Jafar Panahi playing someone like himself in a movie made in Iran about the oppression that a filmmaker, such as Jafar Panahi,

who has been under essentially house arrest and a ban from filmmaking since 2011, the pressures that he faces. In effect, by being a non-actor, He brings the kind of presence to the world of acting that the actual professional world could very well learn from. Now, that sound you hear out in radio land and podcast land is the sound of many people scratching their heads. The Academy's best actor nominations this year were all first-timers. Brendan Fraser for the Whale.

Colin Farrell for the Banshees of Inner Sharon. Bill Nye for living, Austin Butler for Elvis, and Paul Muscal for Afterson. So Richard, none of those impressed you? Some of them even depressed me. Go to it. Name names. I mean, every one of this is a competent actor. In fact, more than competent, every one of them is a wonderful actor.

I thought that Austin Butler playing Elvis had the moves but didn't have the soul. He didn't have the sense of erotic energy that Elvis does. He merely, you know, it seems like an impersonation rather than a performance. I basically think that it's almost impossible. for an actor to give a great performance in a mediocre film. I mean, Paul Meskell is a wonderful actor, but what was required of him in this film is so narrow in its perspective,

so narrow in its range, that I don't consider it more than a skilled professional performance. The same is true of Bill Nyei in Living, a terrible remake of a great film. So, moving on to the next category, the Brody nominees for best actress are Danielle Deadweiler for Till, Tilda Swinton for the Eternal Daughter

and Goussagi Malada in Santomere. And the Brody goes to Danielle Deadweiler for Till. This is the scandal of the year. I agree, Richard. I totally agree. Why is that? Danielle Deadweiler's performance is extraordinary as is the movie and the direction of the film.

All should have been nominated for Oscars. Danielle Deadweiler's performance is a very distinctive kind of performance. It's a still performance. It's a sharply focused performance. It's a rhetorical performance that raises the passion and the calculation, the political calculation of Mamie Till Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, to a kind of prophetic passion. The question is why, in fact, did the acting branch not pay attention to Danielle Deadweiler's

performance? And I think that there's unfortunately a very long history of the Academy membership, simply not even going to see movies that are about the Black American experience. Yeah, Richard, I was just wondering if it's possible that Academy members didn't see this movie in the numbers they should have, in part because, as you say, they may have overlooked a movie focusing on the Black experience, and also this movie deals with an atrocious event. It is incredibly difficult to think about Emmett Till, let alone watch a movie about his murder and the after effects of his murder.

Daniel Deadweiler is the heart and soul of this movie, and she is so moving on screen. There's a scene in which she's testifying at the trial of the men who are accused of having lynched Emmett Till. Like if he bumped into somebody on the street and they might get belligerent or something. Well, I told him to go ahead and humble himself so as not to get into any trouble. But what? Well, I raised him with love for 14 years. my sudden warnings about hate weren't going to get through. What she does with her physical and emotional performance,

her eyes flutter as she describes what it is to love your child. There's something that is so cinematic on the one hand about that performance, but also so deeply felt and authentic, that to me it really seemed like a no-brainer for the kind of performance that should be recognized by the Oscars. None of Richard's picks were the favorites, not surprising. and perhaps, you know, another mark in favor of the Brody's cred. But instead we have Anna DeArmis for blonde,

Andrew Reisborough for to Leslie, Michelle Williams for the Fablman, Michelle Yo for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Kate Blanchett for Tar. We're talking about Michelle Yo, I think, up against Kate Blanchett, no? That's exactly what I think, too. I think it's Michelle Yo's year.

For the simple reason that Kate Blanchett has won Oscars before, I think Kate Blanchett's performance is quite showy, but again, I don't think she had a lot to work with in Tar. Tar plays like cards turned over on a table in a game of three-card Monty. Todd Field knows exactly the cards he's turning over. The movie is set up to provoke responses to push buttons on the basis of the cards that he turns over. You say that like it's a bad thing. What's wrong with that? Well, here's a psychological drama in which there's no psychology, in which the protagonist,

more or less doesn't exist between the scenes that she plays. Alex, I sense you disagree. Well, the truth is that, you know, Richard has swayed me in some respects on TAR. I'm still trying to understand this concept of the character not existing in between the scenes, which I love that idea. Where I disagree with Richard, you know, Richard says the movie is out to provoke responses. Well, yours, Richard, is definitely one of the strongest and most interesting responses that was provoked. But I do not feel that the film neatly aligns with the politics it's showing.

I think it is critiquing those politics. And I know you think that the film is advocating for them, essentially, that it wanted to present this version of cancel culture as an atrocity and something that its character was victimized by. I actually think you see the monstrosity of the character very clearly in the film and that it grows as you come to understand more and more how she has manipulated and abused her position. of power to destroy the life and then lives of the young women around her. Can we not agree that any movie that begins with 15 minutes of the New Yorker Festival is a triumph of cinema? That was bold. That was bold. I think we're all trying, but I think, you know, that was daring, that was audacious, that finally gave us the prominence we've long sought.

All right. Well, after two years in a row of women directors taking home the Oscar for Best Director, we have this year a return to an all-male slate of nominees. We have Todd Field for Tar, Stephen Spielberg for the Fablemans, Ruben Oslin for Triangle of Sadness, Martin McDunna for the banshees of Inshiren, and the duo known as The Daniels, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Shinerd for everything everywhere all at once. Richard, who are your nominees for the best director? Well, my nominees are James Gray for Armageddon Time,

Jordan Peel for Nope, Terence Davis for Benediction, Alice Diop for Saint-Omer and Jafar Panahi for No Bears. My choice for the winner is Jordan Peel. Jordan Peel does something in Nope that I think is exceptionally difficult, which is he takes a big

Hollywood spectacle and does something completely original with it. All I'm saying is, all that's online is fake, low quality. Ain't nobody going to get what we're going to get. What we're going to get? The shot. What shot? The shot. The money shot. Undeniable. the Oprah shot.

He works at the level of any of the directors of the big blockbusters of the year, and he makes a film that is as wildly original as the most do-it-yourself, absolutely unsupervised independent film. Now we are inching toward the crucial moment. The Academy nominated a full 10 movies this year, and among them, Avatar,

everything everywhere all at once, Top Gun. The Banshees of Inishire. Karen, women talking, the fableman's, all quiet on the Western Front, Elvis, Triangle of Sadness, and Tar, which I think we now know Richard has a bit of an argument with. So Richard, Alex, from that group, what would be your pick for Best Picture? Let's go with Alex first. Well, I'm afraid to say it. I think the most academy-like pick is Tar.

Is that my personal pick? I'm still mulling it over. I haven't totally cast my vote. It's in my top two or three. Why is it the most academy pick? Well, because I think a movie that deals with a big artistic figure, a movie that looks directly at prestige and what prestige is like, and a movie that looks prestigious.

She should have won Best Apartment in a movie. Definitely, although who wants to live with so much concrete? Yes. A lot of concrete there, you know, pretty harsh. You're seeing concrete. I'm seeing a lack of children. You know, one or the other. So that is a very Oscar-y movie.

It's a very Oscar-y movie. I mean, everything everywhere all at once has the indie appeal. It has a lot of quirk. It also has a lot of effects. So it's not like a totally, you know, it's still a movie movie, capital M, perhaps capital double M. And I think it's the crowd pleaser and the one perhaps most likely to win. I have a soft spot for women talking, having written about Miriam Taves, the author of the book that Sarah Polly adapted. It's a real ensemble movie.

The only nomination that I'm actually happy about is the one for women talking. I didn't love Sarah Polly's direction, but I think that her screenplay, which was in fact nominated, is a real literary achievement. I think that her transformation of the novel is remarkable and that the movie itself is very moving as a result. I think that everything everywhere all at once is going to win. I think that it has the combination of it feels youthful because of its reliance on special effects and the multiverse and sentiment. Everything everywhere all at once is a very sentimental,

almost a facile film about family life. And that's exactly what the Oscars love. Okay, so Alex, who were the Brody nominations for Best Picture? The nominees for Best Picture at the The 23 Brodies are Benediction, Nope, and Armageddon time. And Richard, the Brody goes to... It goes to Benediction, directed by Terence Davis.

Benediction is the greatest First World War film of the 21st century. It's a biopic of the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who made his name as a poet of the First World War, who was grievously wounded in the First World War, who met the love of his life, the poet Wilfred Owen in a military hospital. Owen was then killed in combat, and Sassoon, as Davis depicts in this film,

spent the rest of his life in a state of grief, rage, and trauma over his experiences in the First World War. It is not your place to question how the war is being prosecuted. Your duty lies in obeying orders. Duty. That word covers a multitude of sins. In the face of such, order, one cannot simply order one's conscience.

One can do better than that. One can ignore it. That reply was so disgraceful you ought to be in politics. I think, can I just say, before we go, I'm just going to put this out there. The idea that these Oscars would get out and conclude, without any acknowledgement of Spielberg's The Fabelmans, which is this autobiographical film, I find it hard to believe. that one happens, in some form or another, best director something. No? Very possibly. There's a great sentimental attachment to Steven Spielberg on the part of the Academy, and this is, for better or worse, a very personal film. For better, in the sense that he knows the story well, and the movie has a great

deal of vigor, a great deal of verve. For worse, it also has a great deal of self-love. It seems to me to be lesser work of autobiography than of auto-hageography. Okay, Alex Schwartz, Richard Brody, as always, A great annual pleasure. Richard Brody's column on film is called The Front Row at New Yorker.com. And you can find all of his best ofves for 2022 and so much more right there at New Yorker.com. Alex, Richard, thanks so much. Thank you, David. David, Alex, thank you very much.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. Thank you for joining us today. And I hope you'll join us next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbes of Tune Arts with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Brita Green, Adam Howard, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, and Ingofen in Putabwele, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Harrison Keith Vine and Meher Batia. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.