Everything Everywhere All at Once - Review

Co-Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert most recent film Everything Everywhere All at Once has gone from being a crowd pleaser early in the 2022 to a critically acclaimed movie in more recent months. I originally saw this movie several months ago as I felt inspired to see it based on how popular it had become with so many people raving about it. When I first saw it I found its relentlessly chaotic style to be hard to follow such that I was unable to fully appreciate the story being told as I was overwhelmed by it constantly bouncing between surreal elements. However, seeing it a second time where I was better prepared for those stylistic choices I found that I enjoyed the movie a lot more as I was better able to appreciate the story since I was not surprised this time around by the more absurd moments in the film. I wonder if other people will also struggle with this movie the first time they see it simply due to the strange way in which this movie tells it’s story.

The movie follows Evelyn Wang, played by Michelle Yeoh, who co-owns a laundromat with her husband Waymond Wang, played by Ke Huy Quan, who has become dissatisfied with her life and the impact this has on her relationship with her daughter Joy Wang, played by Stephanie Hsu. Early in the film Yeoh’s character is given a Matrix style option to either continue down the mundane path she is on or see the reality of her world similar to Neo being given the option between the blue and red pill which many have already stated in their reviews of this film. The movie then enlightens Yeoh and the audience to the reality of the multiverse wherein every time Yeoh made a decision in her life an alternate timeline was created such that there are several different variations of her life in these alternate timelines. My first experience with multiverse storylines was in Family Guy which I thought handled it incredibly well and utilized it to tell a fun and creative story. Here the multiverse serves as a vehicle to allow many of the actors in the film to portray disparate roles as they leap between different versions of themselves across the multiverse. I think the actors who best portrayed different versions of themselves were Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan as the varied personalities they embodied were very distinct especially so for Ke Huy Quan who appears to be a different person after simply removing his glasses signifying that he is now a pseudo James Bond esque multiverse agent as opposed to the meek husband of Michelle Yeoh’s character. That is not to say that Yeoh is bad here but rather to give praise to those actors who I felt better embodied more diverse and disparate personalities. While discussing the actors I want to make sure to mention James Hong who is good here but deserves praise for his incredible body of work which has seen him both on the small screen, where many might recognize him from the famous Chinese Restaurant episode of Seinfeld or his role in The West Wing, and the big screen. Jamie Lee Curtis has also received a lot of praise for her performance here and she is good but I am not sure if she is really great. Curtis plays a prominent role in the first act of the film but kind of disappears after that which may be why her performance seems more muted in my memory as compared to the others.

Much work went into making this movie as can be seen from the opening credits where they change font style several times previewing the multiverse story that the movie is going to tell. The movie, while having a more limited budget of around $25 million, was able to create fantastic visuals through the use of both practical and computer generated special effects. The effects were aided by quick and clever edits where the movie seemed to constantly bounce between different timelines in the multiverse while also ensuring that the viewer was able to figure out where they were between these timelines. Specifically, I enjoyed the way in which the movie had the villain appear to be cycling between versions of themselves they could inhabit as if they were flipping channels which was incredibly clever and stylistic appealing. The movie also has several action sequences which had great choreography even though they were absurd such as the great scene where Ke Huy Quan fights off several security guards by utilizing his fanny pack as a weapon. The aspect ratio also shifted in some action sequences to make it appear more cinematic which I thought was well done and made these moments have added weight to them while also being slightly comedic in nature. I also thought the movie did a good job of referencing other films while still being its own thing including one sequence where a universe where everyone has hot dog fingers is shown in the style of 2001 A Space Odyssey and the Ratatouille homage where a chef instead has a raccoon on his head which I found really funny.

The movie, while it is so surreal, still felt incredibly grounded due to how well developed the characters were. For instance, at the start of the film Yeoh is shown to be happy only when she gets distracted at work watching a minute of a film on a television in the lobby and once she goes back to work appears sullen. Another great moment with Yeoh’s character occurs when she goes to say goodbye to her daughter who wants to come out to her grandfather, which is Yeoh’s strict father, and instead of having a conversation about this Yeoh decides to simply insult her daughter for gaining weight as a kind of reflex to avoid having a deep and more honest interaction. Ke Huy Quan’s character also has a great moment when he first enters the IRS building and notices an older Asian couple similar to he and his wife which we can glean from his expression frightens him as he appears scared of getting older so he immediately asks his wife if she wants to go on a vacation as a means of avoiding feelings of getting older.

The best character and the main focus of film though ends up being Joy Wang, played by Stephanie Hsu, who is Yeoh’s daughter and is having an intense internal conflict wherein she appears to be falling into depression.

In an analogy similar to that of Rust Cohle in the first season of True Detective, Hsu tells Yeoh that in the multiverse she has created a bagel wherein she placed everything and found it all to be the same nonsense with no value. The bagel is also similar to the nothing storm in Never Ending Story which represents depression wherein everything in it is a dark void of nothingness. Ke Huy Quan’s character is the savior in this movie for Hsu as he is the one who enlightens Yeoh’s character to the fact that he is a fighter, even though he seemed so meek throughout the film, as he struggles to be happy which to him is the more noble cause as opposed to giving into despair and finding no value in anything which motivates Yeoh to help Hsu. Later in the film Hsu wants to bring Yeoh with her into the bagel of nothingness where she wants to embrace life being an empty void wherein nothing matters. However, Hsu’s family ends up forming a chain to hold her back from embracing the darkness however the movie then shows that it is Hsu who must decide for herself to escape from this dark void which I found to be profound given that for much of the movie Hsu felt rejected by her family and once they showed their love and support for her she was able to decide for herself to escape her depression.

The movie creatively interrogates a nihilistic perspective of the world where nothing matters and instead of seeing this as hopeless views it as an opportunity for endless freedom reflected in the multiverse where Yeoh and Hsu are shown to simply be two rocks where no life formed and while Hsu seems reserved to stay at rest Yeoh decides to move around stating to her daughter that there are no rules here meaning you can live however you want. This is a really great movie that shows no matter how insignificant and silly life may seem that is not justification for seeing no value in life. Furthermore, at the end of the movie Yeoh’s character is not whisked away into some fairy tale as she still has many problems in her life including the headache she is getting from Curtis’ character who works for the IRS though now, as opposed to at the start of the film, Yeoh better appreciates her family and has come to peace with her life such that she is finally able to be truly happy.

I am shocked that I enjoyed this movie as much as I did given that the first time I saw it I really disliked it. I think the first time I saw it, as I have stated already, the surreal elements and momentum with which the story is told wherein it felt at first as if the movie never lets the audience have a moment to catch their breath overwhelmed my senses such that I could not appreciate the story being told here which is an excellent one. I gave this film an 8/10 and highly recommend it though I warn that you may need to watch it twice to fully appreciate it.

Instead of showing the trailer I thought I would show my two favourite scenes in the movie which are the ones that include the mother and daughter, played by Yeoh and Hsu respectively, when they are in the rock multiverse and discuss life as I feel it best reflects the nature of the movie.