Everything Everywhere All at Once is wacky. Actually, wacky doesn't even begin to describe the absurd, maximalist, head scratcher that is Everything Everywhere All At Once. But if you're brave, if you let go and allow yourself be whisked away to wherever the film takes you, you’ll find Everything Everywhere daring, creative, and a work of pure genius. Mixing every genre from comedy, to martial arts, to sci-fi, and adventure, the Daniels, as the film's directors are collectively known, manage to whip up a wild sensory overload while simultaneously contemplating questions about all the possible iterations of life and how a person maintains their core regardless of its trajectory...It's also a film brought to its philosophical climax by an everything bagel, a mind-boggling culinary feat that is both delightful and confounding, symbolizing the horror, joy, and anything-goes-but-nothing-and-everything matters spirit that forged Everything Everywhere All At Once.
*SPOILERS BELOW*
We're All Small and Stupid.
While the multiverse can feel like nothing more than the latest cinematic trend, there's no denying a certain level of intrigue (and anxiety) that comes from asking ourselves what if. What if instead of no, I'd said yes? What if I'd walked through this door instead of that one? What if I could take back one wrong choice? And within these questions we are given the freedom to imagine ourselves either somewhere more enchanting, somewhere more grand, or some place less demanding than the situation we currently find ourselves in.
That's essentially the set up for Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh who—with Everything, Everywhere, The School for Good and Evil, and Witcher: Blood Origin—had a very busy 2022). Evelyn is trying to run the family laundromat, appease her father Gong Gong (James Hong), get her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) to be more useful, and organize a community get-together all while navigating her daughter Joy's (Stephanie Hsu) coming out. On top of that, she still has to file her damn taxes! (Something I personally can't wait to be rich enough to pay someone else to do.) No one wants to be Evelyn, not even her.
For the restless Mrs. Wang, fate is merciless. And soon she finds herself saddled with a new responsibility: rescuing the multiverse from an omniversal entity by verse-jumping into alternate realities to learn the skills necessary to take down the ultimate evil. (You know, the usual stuff.) And so her journey begins. She's hopping between timelines—one where she's a martial arts film star, one where she's a hibachi chef exposing one unusual af "Ratatouille" situation, and the most disappointing reality of them all, one where she's fighting for her life in an IRS building. Oh, and hotdog fingers. There's also hotdog fingers.
The Less Sense it Makes, the Better.
Strung together with frenetic, quick-cut editing, cinematography that oscillates between ominous and hopeful, and a tension building score that holds on tight and never lets go, Everything Everywhere is a rich tapestry of genres over generations where a lifetime of regret weaves the threads of generational trauma. And the process is both a funny and tear-jerking one as the film examines Evelyn’s roles as both daughter and mother, a person who has to fulfill expectations and a person who sets expectations for others to fulfill, and, more importantly, how one influences the other. The angst resulting from Evelyn's dad chiding her for running off with Waymond in the past leads to Evelyn wanting a more ordered life for Joy in the present. However, she fails to see how her constant criticisms of Joy—Joy's weight, appearance in general, and sexuality—an overcorrection on her part, is oppressing Joy the same way her father's criticisms oppressed her. And in Joy's case, causes a rift that multiplies throughout the multiverse leading to the creation of the greatest threat to every version of Evelyn; Joy's pain, personified by an evil Alpha Joy hell bent on destroying all universes. And it's only through traversing realities that Evelyn learns she is the true villain and the way to defeat evil isn't through super human pinky strength or hot dogging someone in the face, but through healing. (Are you crying yet because I am 😭)
Every New Discovery is Just a Reminder.
So when I say Everything Everywhere All at Once sucker punched me, I mean it. I went into it expecting a film where Jackie Chan style antics meet the Multiverse of Madness (which, between Jenny Slate twirling a dog and leash over her head like a pair of nunchucks and a smackdown involving two martial artists and one makeshift buttplug, there's certainly plenty of). But what I got was a film that, bizarre as it may seem, has a metric mega ton of heart. And ultimately one that wears that heart on its sleeve. It's a film that, like life, requires patience and an open mind. It's a film that embraces cheese, not as a form of naïveté but as a method of survival. And a film that emphasizes the importance of choosing to find value in the present, finding strength in empathy, and not allowing every choice we didn't make blind us to the ones we did. In the words of Alpha Waymond, "Every distraction, every disappointment has led you here to this moment. Don't ever let anything distract you from it."
5/5 🌟: A modern masterpiece.
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