The Oscars and the unhappy Immigrant Multiverse
Since Everything Everywhere All at Once was such a giant success at the Oscars last night, I figured I’d unlock the episode we did on the film about ten months ago when it first came out. To Evgenia and me, reviewers missed what this film’s about: at its core it’s about the paranoid, destabilizing multi-personality experience of being an immigrant in America — and about being unhappy with the choices you made. That’s why the film’s schizoid “multiverse” premise works so well. It’s all about decisions you made and didn’t make and your fantasies about “what could have been” if you never came to this place.
Our main problem with Everything Everywhere is that it’s too happy and sappy. It resolves too sweetly. There aren’t many films that are dark and genuinely skeptical about the American immigrant experience — and in the end this one isn’t either. But it wouldn’t be a Hollywood movie or a giant Oscars success if it didn’t in end happily and celebrate America.
Anyway, the ep is unlocked now. Enjoy!
—Yasha
Want to know more? Check out previous episodes of The Russians.