Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
dir. Daniels
Rated: R
image: ©2021 A24
Like the endless possibilities contained within the movie itself, if you asked a dozen people coming out of Everything Everywhere All at Once what their main takeaway was, you’d likely get a dozen different answers. The themes, connections, and wildly inventive filmmaking come spilling out of this movie at warp speed. The second film from the directing team known as Daniels – the duo is made up of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – is even more bonkers than their first, the inexplicably goofy Swiss Army Man. This time they have the outlandish budget to match their outlandish ideas. The result is a joyous, dense take on human existence that celebrates hope and empathy.
The story focuses on Chinese-American immigrant Evelyn Wang, who runs a failing laundromat with her hapless husband, Waymond. Evelyn is sunk in the feeling that she has wasted her life. Her husband is ineffectual, both in their business and marriage. Her Americanized daughter, Joy, is an ungrateful 20-something who chafes at any instruction Evelyn offers. Evelyn’s father, whom the family calls Gong Gong (Cantonese for grandfather), has recently arrived from China. Evelyn fears how he will react when he discovers that Joy is gay. Joy is infuriated when her mother introduces her girlfriend, Becky, as simply “a friend.” On top of all that, the Wang’s are also preparing for an IRS audit of their laundromat.
Then there’s the whole multiverse thing.
On the elevator ride up to see the IRS agent in charge of their audit, Waymond begins acting very strange. He gives a nonsensical speech to Evelyn about how to protect herself, which includes a set of cryptic instructions. One of the instructions is to put her right shoe on her left foot and vice versa. Evelyn is as confused as we are; her mind is more focused on having her receipts in order for the impending meeting than anything Waymond is saying. It’s later, when they’re under attack and Waymond somehow becomes a martial arts expert, that Evelyn heeds her husband’s words. He tells her that he is a version of Waymond from another universe. He is Alpha Waymond from the Alpha Universe, and he’s here to train Evelyn in the ways of ‘verse-jumping.
The irony of the release date of Everything will likely be lost to time, but Daniels’s movie is sandwiched in between two movies from Disney’s cultural and financial Marvel juggernaut that also deal with the idea of multiple universes. The Disney+ series Loki kicked off the multiverse plotline(s) and Spider-Man: No Way Home, released last December, carried the idea further. The upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will expand on our MCU heroes battling baddies in an infinite number of alternate realities.
As seen through the cockeyed and deeply irreverent sensibilities of Daniels, the endless possibilities inherent in infinite universes – each one spinning off from the myriad different decisions any one person can make in any given situation – leads to unimaginable, and more often than not, hilarious, results. I could easily double the length of this review by simply listing off all the different versions of reality that Daniels, who cowrote the screenplay together, treat us to, many of which last mere seconds at a time.
My personal favorite has to be the universe where everyone has hot dogs for fingers. No, not actual hot dogs, but hyper-elongated and seemingly boneless fingers that flop around like hot dogs on short sticks. In that universe, people use their feet to do everything, including, improbably, to play the piano. One magical shot shows a character playing the piano flawlessly with her feet. The most hilarious touch is that one foot has an ankle brace on it; the same character in our more mundane universe wears a wrist brace on the corresponding hand. There’s also the inventive riff on, and homage to, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Daniels show us the famous apes from that film, but, naturally, with hot dogs for fingers.
In the Alpha Universe, which is the one true reality from which all other universes have branched, a team once headed by Waymond’s late wife, the Alpha Evelyn, have mathematically refined a way for a person to jump into their alternate selves. With this technique, a person can tap into the skills, memories, and lives of their multiverse counterparts.
Kwan and Scheinert’s off-kilter sense of humor is relentlessly inventive and feels like a polished version of what you might hear two film students come up with while batting around ideas in their dorm room while stoned. (The two met while studying film together at Emerson College in Boston.) The best example of that inventiveness comes in Alpha Waymond’s explanation to our universe’s Evelyn on how to ‘verse-jump. A specific and unique set of actions and movements – switching shoes onto the wrong feet, for example – if performed by the right person, will whisk that person’s consciousness into one of the other infinite versions of themselves.
The most outlandish and outrageous of these instructions are used by the henchmen sent to kill our Evelyn by the evil (or so we’re told) mastermind from the Alpha Universe, Jobu Tupaki. As part of the ‘verse-jumping sequence, the henchmen must drop their pants and sit on butt plugs.
You’d think a movie that features a character wielding a fanny pack as a deadly weapon couldn’t possibly be anything but an absurd comedy. Everything Everywhere All at Once excels at the absurd comedy, but it’s also grounded in a deep and profound sense of pathos.
As the film unfolds, we come to know Evelyn and how deeply unsatisfied she is. Like anyone who hasn’t found success or personal fulfilment, Evelyn fears that she has wasted her life. In a comedic twist, Alpha Waymond has focused on this version of Evelyn because she has untapped potential precisely because, he tells her, everything she’s ever tried has been a failure. He believes she is the only version of Evelyn who can defeat Jobu Tupaki, a villain intent on destroying all iterations of the multiverse.
It's not a huge spoiler to reveal that Jobu Tupaki is actually the Alpha Universe version of Joy. (We learn this within the first half-hour or so of the picture.) It’s necessary for me to disclose that fact because the (dysfunctional) relationship between Evelyn and Joy is at the emotional core of the movie.
I won’t reveal exactly why Jobu Tupaki is bent on destruction. (Her plan includes using a black hole-sized everything bagel because, well, this is a Daniels movie.) The hurt and trauma at the root of it all holds unexpected profundity. The fraught emotions and complicated history that Daniels crafted for the mother/daughter relationship at the heart of Everything had my wife (who joined me at the press screening I attended) in tears. She told me afterward that she would love nothing more than for her own mother to see the movie. The only thing holding her back is recommending a movie to her mother that prominently features butt plugs.
Daniels made Swiss Army Man for three million dollars. They made Everything for 25 million dollars. You can see every penny of their bigger budget on the screen. I was impressed by both the film’s sense of scale and its extensive fight choreography. Both were most likely helped by the film’s producers, Marvel stalwarts Joe and Anthony Russo. The Russo brothers’ expertise at creating vast and imaginative worlds as the directors of films like the final two Avengers movies was undoubtedly a rich resource from which Daniels could draw.
The cast of Everything Everywhere All at Once work together in splendid harmony. Daniels originally conceived of the story as an action/martial arts vehicle for Jackie Chan. During the writing process, the directing team decided to gender flip the main character. It was probably the best decision they could have made.
I’ve got nothing against Mr. Chan, but Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn is a revelation. Her fighting scenes here wonderfully echo her central role in the 2001 critical and box office smash hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There is inarguable movie magic at play, but the nearly-60-year-old Yeoh looks lither than I did at 20 – or ever, for that matter. Yeoh also proves herself as an expert at playing multiple emotional notes at once. The sequences toward the end of the movie in which Evelyn and Jobu Tupaki confront the underlying trauma that Jobu is dealing with are movingly cathartic.
Any 80s/90s kid (like myself) will thrill to see James Hong as Gong Gong. Hong isn’t given too much to do in Everything, but seeing his familiar face – beloved from his bit part in Blade Runner to, of course, his star turn as the nefarious David Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China – warmed my heart.
It was also extremely gratifying to realize that Waymond is played (exceptionally well) by former child star Ke Huy Quan. If you’re familiar with the name at all, it’s most likely because of his roles as Data in the 80s cult classic The Goonies and as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Quan left acting 20 years ago because he was disappointed in the few opportunities Asian-American actors are afforded in Hollywood. He was inspired to return to the profession after seeing the success of 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians. We should all consider ourselves lucky.
Quan delivers an affable, sweet, goofy performance as Waymond. He also gets to show off the magic of acting in that he is able to portray different versions of the same character. His scenes as a dapper and financially successful Waymond in one of the alternate universes couldn’t be any different from our version of Waymond. Quan pulls off both (and many others) with unimaginable ease.
Rounding out the cast is Stephanie Hsu as Joy/Jobu Tupaki. I’m a fan of Hsu’s work as the exasperated Mei Lin on the phenomenal The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Hsu is asked, like every other actor in Everything, to interpret dozens of shades of the character(s) she’s playing, and she is excellent at giving each one a distinct personality.
Jamie Lee Curtis gloriously chews scenery as the IRS agent in charge of the Wang laundromat audit. Her character name is Deirdre Beaubeirdra, and Curtis’s wild performance – she has a few graphic seconds as one of those hot dog finger people – matches the ridiculous name perfectly.
The above 1700-odd words feel woefully inadequate in expressing the true weirdness and originality of Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s a movie that must be seen to be believed. Daniels have crafted a triumphantly cinematic work of art. It’s a soaring ode to familial bonds, empathy, and accepting those you love for who they are.
Plus, butt plugs and people with hot dog fingers.
Why it got 4.5 stars:
- It’s been a while since I’ve been able to use my favorite descriptor for a movie: bonkers. Everything Everywhere All at Once is definitely the most bonkers movie of the year so far. There is also a giant heart under all the delightful zaniness. This is a movie that gives you everything all at once, and that’s its greatest strength.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- Right from the opening shots, Daniels incorporate some really inventive camera work involving mirrors.
- There is nothing better than serendipitous movie watching that helps make connections between two totally unrelated movies. The week before seeing Everything, I watched Barry Lyndon for the first time. Kubrick’s nihilistic bit of wisdom in that movie is that though we scramble around this earth for a few precious decades doing things that are important and meaningful to us, in the grand scale of time, it’s all rather pointless. Daniels confront the same ultimate meaninglessness in the opposite way. Instead of responding to human foibles with a cynical smirk, Daniels affirm that every person does matter simply by virtue of existing. That makes this movie as heartwarming as Barry Lyndon is bleakly funny (also in a satisfying way).
- I will never, ever tire of hearing Debussy’s Clair de Lune. It might be my favorite piece of music to turn up in a movie. I’m instantly comforted every time it happens.
- Huge shout out to editor Paul Rogers. The entire movie is bursting with inventive cuts, but one virtuoso montage sequence, in which we see probably hundreds of Evelyns in the space of mere seconds, is particularly exhilarating.
- Experimental band Son Lux’s score is pretty impressive, too.
- I didn’t want to spoil too much in the review, but the movie also tackles the pain and depression of suicidal ideation in a real and meaningful way.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- I saw Everything Everywhere All at Once at a press screening with a few dozen others. The reaction in the room was electric. Everyone really seemed to dig it. After playing in select cities beginning on March 22nd, it’s now available in a wide theatrical release beginning today, April 8th.