Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
Disclaimer:
The film I’m reviewing this week is rated: R
This post contains some swearing, images, and content unsuitable for children.
One of the main reasons I had avoided this movie at first wasn’t that I thought it wasn’t going to be good, but just that I was getting really burnt out on multiverse movies and shows. While there have been some really good ones that’ve come out in recent years, most notably Spider-Man films, this was a fad that was starting to feel overdone and tiresome for me. But, having heard several things about this film from family, friends, and the Academy Awards, I finally decided it was a good time to give it a look. I loved it. That’s about as plain as I can put it. Everything in this movie just seems to fit together perfectly from each of the separate realities, to all of the hidden visual clues, to the characters and their interactions. When you put it together it all makes for a fun, suspenseful, action-packed, and emotionally powerful experience.
As soon as you think everything that can be done with a genre has been done, a movie like this one comes along to prove to you that there’re plenty more avenues to explore. All the quirky, crazy, funny, heart-pounding avenues that still exist. This is one of the things that I enjoy the most about movies and media in general is how much variety that exists and how many different paths that you can take with ideas that seem exhausted to make them just as fresh as they were when they were first utilized.
With fresh acting, fresh writing, fresh directing, and fresh cinematography, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is truly an unforgettable experience and one I’m pretty excited to talk about today. So I’ll stop yapping about it so we can verse jump right into it.
Stick on you googly eyes, be careful with your hotdog fingers, and let’s take a look at Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.
The opening scene does a good job of introducing an off-putting tone to the film and getting us acquainted with the main issue. We see how our main character Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) is the owner of a failing laundromat that’s in the midst of being audited, her husband Waymond (played by Ke Huy Quan) is trying to serve her divorce papers, her daughter Joy (played by Stephanie Hsu) has distanced herself from her mother, and her father Gong-Gong (played by James Hong) is suffering from dementia and will likely die soon. This is definitely a lot of information to take in at first, and much of it is pretty heavy, but the movie does a very good job of condensing this information into the first 10 minutes of the film without it feeling overwhelming or hard to follow. If anything, the hectic feeling these first 10 minutes have really allows the audience to feel the extent to which Evelyn’s life seems to be crumbling around her. Even if you’re not exactly invested in Evelyn and her family’s struggles just yet, the movie takes its time setting up their situations and giving each character the appropriate amount of time they need to express themselves. Don’t worry, if you aren’t invested now, rest assured you’ll be crying later. I was.
Once at the IRS building, after establishing future plot threads, to discuss their audit, we’re officially introduced to the concept of the multiverse when Waymond starts acting strange in the elevator. He opens his umbrella with bagels on it (specifically bagels because that’ll become important later) to cover up the elevator camera and explain to Evelyn what she needs to do. Of course, nobody has any idea what’s going on, but after Waymond puts some strange devices on Evelyn’s ears, she gets a flashback of her entire life up until now further cementing that what she’s experiencing is actually real. Waymond writes down some instructions for her to follow after the meeting starts and things seem to go back to normal. This will not be the case for the rest of the movie, but that’s partly why I like it so much because it is so frickin’ weird.
Finally at the meeting we’re introduced to the IRS agent that’s been put in charge of Evelyn’s case: Deirdre Beaubeirdre (played by the original scream queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis (Don’t worry, she’s still got it)). Deirdre doesn’t seem particularly pleased with Evelyn, and also doesn’t seem to be the kind of character who would be particularly pleased with anything, but Evelyn decides to follow Waymond’s instructions while Deirdre is distracted. This causes her to be forced into an alternate reality where instead of going to her scheduled audit appointment, she went into the nearest janitor’s closet where we’re officially introduced to Alpha Waymond who is an alternate version of Waymond but is merely using Prime Waymond’s body to communicate to Evelyn. As it turns out, people from Alpha Waymond’s universe have discovered the ability to jump from universe to universe and experience what their alternate selves are experiencing. In the process though, they’ve uncovered an all-powerful evil called Jobu Tupaki, and it’s up to Evelyn to defeat it.
Yeah, these early scenes of them in the IRS building are the most explain-y portions of the movie, but I kinda forgive it. The main reason being that these explanations are interwoven with what’s taking place back in Evelyn’s prime universe at the audit appointment which makes it more interesting. I say this because Deirdre says to Evelyn in her prime universe that “Nothing is more important than the conversation that we’re having right now” as it seems like Evelyn isn’t paying attention to her, but back in the alternate universe, Alpha Waymond tells her the same thing. Alpha Waymond is ultimately correct, especially if the fate of the multiverse is at stake, but it speaks to the movie’s talent that while I agree with Alpha Waymond the multiverse deserves to be saved, I still was nervous that Evelyn’s audit would get screwed up because of all of this. If the multiverse is literally crumbling due to a supernatural evil, but you still get me to care about complicated fine print, you’re clearly doing something right.
This is an actual still from the movie after Evelyn gets transferred to the alternate universe.
After the multiverse is officially unpacked, Alpha Waymond and Evelyn are attacked by Alpha Deirdre which snaps Evelyn back to her prime universe. Prime Deirdre decides to give Evelyn one last chance to get her crap together, but after the appointment is over, Evelyn sees Deirdre approach her from across the floor. Since Evelyn doesn’t know if this is Alpha Deirdre or Prime Deirdre, she panics and punches her in the face when she gets too close. It turns out it was Prime Deirdre, which means Evelyn dun messed up, so Deirdre calls security on her. When they get there, Alpha Waymond has himself a little chapstick snack (yes, he eats a stick of chapstick) and whoops all of them with his fanny-pack.
Might I also take a second to add that the action in this movie is very well done. It really immerses you in the moment allowing you to feel every hit that ever character takes while also throwing in a little humor on the side. Most of the humor in these scenes are visual gags. Just saying how Alpha Waymond destroyed an entire squad of security guards with a fanny-pack is pretty funny on its own, but there’s also a guy in this movie who gets beaten down with a pair of extra-long, extra-strong dildos. I won’t show you a picture of that. I want to keep this blog. Although, now you definitely have a better idea of what I mean when I say this movie gets pretty weird.
So what have we learned? By doing random weird things you can tap into another universe where you’re a martial arts champion. Well, once Alpha Deirdre shows her face again and tries to attack Evelyn after this bit of fun with the security guards, Evelyn is able to do just that and defeat her with relative ease. Although, this attracts the attention of the dreaded Jobu Tupaki who finally shows herself to our heroes and it’s revealed to be Evelyn’s daughter Joy! Twist! So now Evelyn is forced to make a difficult decision: either save the multiverse and kill her daughter, or spare her daughter and doom the multiverse. Both undesirable in their own ways.
How did this happen? As it turns out, Alpha Evelyn is the one who discovered how to jump from universe to universe and started testing out this technology on younger, more gifted, subjects. One of those subjects that proved to be the most promising was her own daughter Joy whom she pushed to the limit to try to make a breakthrough. Instead she ended up creating Jobu Tupaki, a being who’s unstuck from any universe, can travel freely between all of them, and now will stop at nothing to find the perfect Evelyn. She’s killed every Evelyn she’s come across, including Alpha Evelyn, and now Prime Evelyn shows the most promise.
Along the way, Jobu Tupaki has gotten pretty bored of endless realities, and one day decided to put everything on a bagel. Literally everything. Credit card numbers, pillows, houses, viruses, books, music, clothes, humans, animals, elements, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, you name it. Everything on a bagel, and this is what’s destroying the multiverse: a bagel. See just how surreally funny this movie is? Either way, now that Jobu has discovered her perfect Evelyn, the one who’s the worst version of herself with dozens of dashed dreams and squandered opportunities, Jobu now feels like she has someone she can relate to. So she shows her the bagel.
Upon entering the bagel and seeing…the truth I guess, Evelyn is able to tap into all of the alternate universes she’s connected with up until now and become unstuck herself from all of them, just like Jobu. In these universes, she at first follows Jobu’s example and takes a nihilistic approach to all of them. The thing about Evelyn though is that through the failures she’s experienced in her prime universe, she’s able to pull herself out of the cynicism and apathy and instead find the silver lining in all of it: her family. This is where we get to learn the most about each of her family members and also leads us to the most emotional moments of the movie.
Up first is Waymond and Evelyn’s struggling relationship. The reason why Waymond served Evelyn those divorce papers wasn’t because he actually wanted to divorce her, but because Evelyn is so caught up in her work and other life struggles that she doesn’t pay attention to Waymond unless it’s an emergency. We also see, since Evelyn is now unstuck in the multiverse, in an alternate universe where Evelyn actually rejected Waymond and instead became a professional martial artist for film and TV who makes a ton of money, she eventually meets back up with Waymond at the screening for her new film (funnily enough, the film is just the events of Evelyn’s prime universe playing out in real time). There, Waymond wants to try to get back together with Evelyn, but since she knows that in her own universe marrying Waymond led her to the failing laundromat, she rejects him again. She tells him that she doesn’t want to go down that road and doesn’t want to be a failure just doing laundry and taxes all day, but Waymond replies that in another life, even if he or Evelyn aren’t successful or rich, he would’ve loved doing laundry and taxes with her all day just so long as he could be with her.
…Yeah, this is usually where the tears start.
Did you forget Jobu Tupaki is still a thing?! Yeah, because she isn’t having any of this sappy crap and turns all of her forces against Evelyn which is when another important realization is made. This all takes place back in Evelyn’s prime universe where Prime Waymond tells her that he doesn’t want to see anyone fighting anymore, so Evelyn decides to improvise. Instead of fighting, Evelyn chooses to kill her enemies with kindness. One of the notable enemies among the ranks is Alpha Gong-Gong who is now pulling out all the stops to prevent Evelyn from sparing Jobu Tupaki.
I kinda forgot to mention him earlier, but what happened is that Alpha Gong-Gong originally came into play to assist Evelyn in killing Jobu Tupaki, but when Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to kill Joy, Alpha Gong-Gong decided to take Evelyn out of the picture in order to prevent her from potentially becoming influenced by Jobu Tupaki’s bagel (which eventually she did). Alpha Gong-Gong traps Evelyn with his newly constructed mech armor, which this whole moment is also a subtle allusion to how in Evelyn’s prime universe Gong-Gong disowned her for marrying Waymond, and Evelyn tells him off for the first time. Up until now, Gong-Gong has been pretty callous towards his daughter, and this is where Evelyn tells him that she’s not going to let what happened to her happen to Joy. Evelyn is going to be there for her daughter, unlike what her father did for her in her hour of need. This is what convinces Alpha Gong-Gong to come around and help Evelyn save Joy.
Now it’s Joy’s turn, and they go through several different universes to settle their differences, often with armed combat. Evelyn is forced to face every mistake she’s made in Joy’s life and what’s led her to this point in the first place. They also spend some time as rocks. This is one of the universes that exists where the conditions weren’t just right in order for life to form, so the only thing that exists is rocks. It’s in this scene that both Joy and Evelyn relax and realize what’s most important to both of them, and in the process Evelyn does what she can to connect with Joy. It’s weird, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever felt moved by staring at rocks. This moment alone is so silly, cute, and sad at the same time my body physically reacts to it every time I see it.
The context of the movie is what makes it sad.
What’s really cool about Evelyn and Joy making amends with each other is that while each of the other scenes involving Evelyn making amends with her family took place across universes, in this case, since Joy is Jobu Tupaki and unstuck from the multiverse, every universe they interact in is relevant to their situation. Literally everything is happening everywhere, all at once in the case of these two characters putting aside their differences. It also gives their connection much more of a dramatic weight and helps us as the audience feel for them all the more.
Eventually Joy caves in and instead of giving herself over to the bagel, she finds herself comfortable in her family’s arms again. This results in the fractured multiverse being restored and Jobu Tupaki being defeated. Defeated in the sense that she’s once again found peace in her prime universe and her power of swapping between universes at will has been subdued, finally proving that all you have to do to save the world is love people. John Lennon was right.
After things are restored, we get a brief denouement involving the family going back to the IRS building the following day to finish filing the necessary paperwork with Deirdre. The fate of our characters is uncertain after the end of the film since it ends rather abruptly with Deirdre asking Evelyn if she’s paying attention before the credits roll, but the impact this film will have on you is certainly going to be a lasting one.
Even after only seeing this film a handful of times for this review, I can’t seem to get it out of my head. Sure some of the storytelling tropes in this film are a bit standard, but to me that only becomes a problem if nothing new is done with it. In my opinion, this movie takes things such as family struggle tropes, multiverse tropes, sci-fi adventure tropes, and action tropes and combines them in a way that’s unique, unexpected, unforgettable, and surreally creative. The average viewer that comes into the cinema to see this movie is likely not expecting to see all of these elements together in the same movie which is what gives this movie as much staying power as it has.
Taking the writing and storytelling tropes out of the picture, there are still several elements in this movie to appreciate. The acting is on point, the camerawork is stunning, the editing and effects are mind-blowing, the stunts are a spectacle, and the characters are disgustingly relatable and likable. Surely a film like this is bound to become a film history classic in this and every other universe, and if you’re looking for a film for this weekend movie night, look no further than Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.
For my obligatory rating that I give each film and show I review (except one), this will be my first time awarding a movie a 5/5 googly rocks, because you know what…
.
.
.
This movie rocks.
Thank you to commenter KyrionKrackle for suggesting this movie!
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned by their respective copyright holders, which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I do not make them)
(Yet)
