Triangle of Sadness never stood a chance as a major Oscar contender, of course. And as a skewering of the rich and a society that worships them, it was certainly not going to topple the likes of Everything Everywhere All At Once. Which, say what you will about it, is not some kind of “love letter” to moms (in the spirit of the 1942 children’s book, Runaway Bunny) or “ordinary people,” so much as a thinly-veiled push to accept your fate—no matter how mediocre—make the most of it and, obviously, never try to outsmart/dodge the IRS. Even though it seems like one ought to be able to mentally maneuver around somebody as toady as Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis, who swept up an Oscar for her part in the movie as well), Kafka long ago made it clear that bureaucracy always triumphs. And so do schmaltzy movies at the Oscars—regardless of such movies being masked as “profound” and “rooted in realism.”
That “realism” begins when Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is confronted at the IRS office by Alpha-Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), another version of her husband from the multiverse. But it’s difficult to focus on what Alpha-Waymond is saying to her about the collapse of every universe while the “voice of reason” throughout the film, Deirdre, a star IRS agent (with the butt plug-shaped Auditor of the Month awards to prove it), keeps trying to bring Evelyn back to “reality,” whatever that means. But to Deirdre, it means reminding this non-taxpayer that “hobbies” are not businesses, and that Evelyn is going to be in some serious trouble if she doesn’t get her story straight with regard to her tax return “narrative.” Notably, Everything Everywhere All at Once’s major sweep of the Oscars comes just in time for tax season—how fucking convenient is that, as Cardi B would say. Because yes, amid all the smokescreens about nihilism and how “nothing matters,” the Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) ultimately seem to want to remind viewers that nothing is ever so chaotic in any universe as to excuse away not correctly filling out and filing a tax return.
In truth, the only way to gauge whether or not a bona fide apocalypse has occurred is if people stop paying their taxes and are able to “get away with it.” This tending to refer to something like a The Last of Us scenario wherein it’s irrefutably true that nothing matters, save for basic survival (thanks to the 28 Days Theory on Humans Enduring for No Good Reason Other Than It’s Encoded Within Them). Or, in the instance of Triangle of Sadness, you find yourself in a Lord of the Flies situation, stranded on a deserted island. That’s when humanity in its most unbridled form reveals itself. But naturally, the Academy doesn’t likely care to remind viewers of such “ugly” realities, like “buying sex with the common food” as Abigail (Dolly de Lion) does in her newfound role as leader.
In contrast, while she was a cleaner on a 250-million-dollar yacht, Abigail was “valueless.” In the rough of the wild, however, her skills (what the Daniels would bill as being part of “competency porn”) are worth everything to the passengers that now depend on her for survival. Paula (Vicki Berlin), the head of staff on the yacht, makes the mistake of trying to treat Abigail the same way she does on the boat, having the gall to ask her after Abigail does all the work to finagle them a fish dinner, “Why do you get so much food? Why?” This question forces Abigail, The Little Red Hen of the outfit, to spell it out by explaining, “I caught the fish, I made the fire, I cooked. I did all the work, and everybody got something.” In capitalist existence, this is simply called a laborer. In Lord of the Flies existence, this is called running shit and everyone else without any viable skills can shut the fuck up.
When Yaya (Charlbi Dean), the proverbial hot model/influencer of the yacht’s remaining passengers, ends up hiking with Abigail over a mountain to find that they’re actually on an island that houses a bougie resort, the look on Abigail’s face is one of sheer disappointment. She doesn’t want to go back to how it used to be. To the existence, or “universe,” as Everything Everywhere All at Once would bill it, where she’s a lowly peon whose skills are rendered useless again now that money as the sole source of clout has reentered the equation. In Everything Everywhere All at Once, the Daniels attempt to lift up the working class by spotlighting them as the “real superheroes” in this world. Of course, what would be far more uplifting to them is if they were paid accordingly. Not given some propaganda about accepting how shitty things are and, by the way, keep paying your taxes.
Perhaps the vastly opposing messages of each film, with Everything Everywhere All at Once disguised as something it’s not, proves that the only side people want to see of themselves is the rose-colored one. With “normal” Waymond saying such dialogue as, “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind.” A more debonair Waymond in the universe where Evelyn is a film star and didn’t end up marrying him finds her telling Waymond how bleak it would have been if she had opted for a life with him. As he leaves, Waymond ripostes, “In another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.”
This is what finally warms Evelyn’s heart back up to Waymond in the universe where they do just that, turning her back on the darkness that Jobu Tupaki a.k.a. her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), has infected Evelyn with on her journey through the multiverse. Although it seems like Joy might have won with her darkness (and the everything bagel that encompasses it), Evelyn chooses to employ Waymond’s combat style of “killing with kindness” (it was a grave error that Selena Gomez’s “Kill ‘Em With Kindness” was not used at any point during this scene). This, in turn, leads laundromat owner Evelyn to not let her daughter go even though she asks to be.
Chasing after Joy outside the laundromat, Evelyn explains that she would rather be in this universe with Joy over any other. Joy counters, “[But] here all we get are a few specks of time where any of this actually makes sense.” Needless to say, Joy isn’t referring only to the literal way in which she and her mother have a tendency to tune their being into different universes, but the way in which none of life really makes sense to any of us. Except for those rare moments of clarity we’re meant to get by being surrounded with loved ones and friends during those precious, errant hours of time off from work. Work is what people do, after all, in order to support those around them. Including institutions that profit from (usually underpaid) labor. Especially the IRS.
“Then I will cherish these few specks of time,” Evelyn assures. As though to say that we all should do the same with vacation weeks and “leisure hours” spent recovering from the horrors of working so that said wage can be gutted like a fucking fish by the government. To act like the Daniels aren’t complicit in perpetuating this inherently flawed cycle, they have Joy announce at the end, “Taxes suck.” But, clearly, you still have to do them if you want to be considered a Viable Member of Society (meaning, ultimately, a law-abiding one—laws being a social construct created by—ding! ding! ding!—the government a.k.a. the rich people that control it).
Incidentally, the final line of the movie consists of Evelyn inquiring, “Sorry, what did you say?” It’s an appropriate question for those viewers who thought that they had heard something infinitely wise and profound when, at the core of Everything Everywhere All at Once is the longstanding societal reiteration that you must do your taxes and honor the family unit. Not just by never abandoning it, but by making sure that the same “beliefs” are imparted down the generational line. In other words, of course this would get the Academy hard as a rock compared to something as “Eat the Rich” in sentiment as the aforementioned Triangle of Sadness.
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