You know that feeling you get after you see what has instantly become one of your new favorite movies? The credits are rolling but you can’t move as if you are glued to your seat. The goosebumps and palpable excitement have not left your body yet. Still misty-eyed, your salty tears are stained on your cheek.
To say that Daniel Scheinert and Dan Kwan’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” meets the bare minimum of being one of my new favorite films is a profound understatement. Unabashedly weird, extraordinary and breathtakingly imaginative, this multiversal story about the strength of familial love and the “too-muchness” of existential despair left me in absolute awe from beginning to end.
This film is an acid drop of stoner movie heaven and Hong Kong action cinema that explodes right off the screen with endless emotional depth.
Directed by directorial duo collectively known as Daniels of “Swiss Army Man” fame, this new A24 picture follows Chinese immigrant and failing laundromat owner Evelyn Wang, played by Michelle Yeoh, who finds herself caught up as the reluctant Chosen One to save the multiverse from the disease of an all-encompassing black hole. With the newfound power of connecting with different versions of herself, Evelyn can harness their abilities of martial arts, dance, hibachi chef skills or being a movie star.
But Evelyn is way too busy to save the world today. Already under an IRS audit, she is overwhelmed and struggling to maintain a steady relationship with her earnest husband, openly lesbian daughter and aging father who views her as a disappointment.
With the title serving as the film’s thesis, the story reads almost like a period piece for 2022 in that all its characters are often plagued with the constant strain of feeling confused, lost in humdrum of existence, and unsure if linear time is real. Despite its exuberant goofiness, “Everything Everywhere” feels universally relatable in the era of Zoom classes, busy work, and the sweeping blanket of the loudness and banality of the universe.
Yeoh captures the feeling of being swallowed up by responsibility and prioritizing work over spending time with loved ones. Evelyn, specifically the main Evelyn, is not always likable to us, rarely saying something comforting. She often misunderstands the little moments, not fully seeing her husband, Waymond, or daughter, Joy, and scoffing at their plight or calling them names. She is the glue of the movie in that she feels fully textured and battered down by the weight of the world, which the Daniels seem to understand. Her character, along with, her lack of courage and confidence make the audience empathetic.
However, this film features an equally outstanding supporting cast that is essential to the film’s idiosyncratic vision. Featuring his first major film role since playing Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and Data in “The Goonies,” Ke Huy Quan returns in stunning fashion to the silver screen as Evelyn’s husband, Waymond, as the film’s beating heart, to bring charisma, humor and soul to the film. Stephanie Hsu and James Wong as Evelyn’s daughter and father are scene stealers. Yeoh and the rest of the cast, including a raccoon puppet, are undeniably integral to the wonderment of this movie.
The concept of multiverses is not alien or groundbreaking film territory to audiences after recently seeing their favorite Spider-Men fight CGI villains, but the Daniel’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” excels at breathing new life into the idea with a mind-bending and surreal ride of action, trademark absurdity, and tear-jerking emotion. It assaults the senses to maximum effect in what can be unabashedly described as the cinematic experience of a lifetime.
The multiverse movie genre has never felt so creative, disarming and fun, especially in today’s contemporary society where human beings are shown infinite realities of other humans, where people are only left to ponder who they wish they could be, and not who they are in the moment.
In short, I found myself openly crying in a packed theater full of strangers all sniffling and laughing throughout this film. With 40 different climaxes and conclusions to its sweeping story, this film is nearly perfect and a guaranteed shoe-in as the finest offering that 2022 has to offer with an authentic Asian identity behind it. Thanks to Michelle Yeoh and cast, this film is a mediation on familial bonds, the roads not taken, and the all-consuming everything-ness of life that expands until it bursts into an explosive injection of pathos right into the heart.
Who would have thought that the best movie of the year would be the one to feature the silliest and most hilarious ideas ever introduced into a movie? It’s like two sentient rocks silently talking to each other, yet make it somehow sincere and truly life-affirming with something as simple as a stare or a mother’s hug. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” just proves that storytelling and the medium of filmmaking is far from dead and still being pushed in this universe and the next.