After the unforgivable slap seen and heard around the world at last year’s Oscars ceremony, a few major questions remain: whether the Academy did enough to punish Will Smith for the attack on Chris Rock, and, given the general decline in viewership, are awards ceremonies still relevant? Of course, the greatest slap in the face to Will Smith – pardon the pun-- would have been if Chris Rock had hosted this year’s Oscars, but Rock turned down the offer.

No film exemplifies these values better than this year’s Everything Everywhere All At Once. Starring Michelle Yeoh, the film follows a middle-aged woman running a laundromat who discovers the existence of a multiverse filled with thousands of versions of herself. It explores Asian-American identity and serves as a parable of the immigrant experience. Critically and commercially acclaimed, the film has proven an enormous success for A24 -- becoming the studio’s first film to gross over 100 million at the box office – and landing Golden Globe Awards for Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan.

Based off the best-selling book of the same name by Kwan (who served as an executive producer of the film), the romantic comedy follows American-born Chinese economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu, “Fresh Off the Boat”) as she joins her boyfriend Nick Young (Golding) on a trip back to his hometown Singapore for his best friend’s wedding. Nick forgets to tell Rachel a minor detail, however, that his family is one of the wealthiest in the country.