Everything Everywhere All At Once Review

To celebrate the wins of my favorite movie of last year and maybe of all time

To celebrate the historic Oscar wins last night for “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” here is the review I wrote for The Dominion Post last year. I also wrote about it here

When Everything is Too Much

and here

Avoiding the bagel in a Menard's parking lot

in this newsletter. And I will definitely have more words about it - this is a movie that has had a profound impact on me.

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I was not yet born when “The Godfather” came out. I was only a few years old when “Star Wars” opened in theaters. And I was in the throes of parenting young children when “The Matrix” was wowing everyone. So I have missed a lot of significant films playing on the silver screen. As I was watching Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s (collectively known as Daniels) “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” I kept thinking, “I am watching a piece of film history right now.” 

Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn Wang, a middle-aged wife and mom, stuck managing a struggling laundromat with her meek husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) and her absentee daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu). Evelyn has become so accustomed to the status quo that she just goes through her days, not really interacting with anyone, stuck in a life that isn’t everything she had hoped for. Her father Gong Gong (James Hong) has come from China to celebrate the Chinese New Year with them, but first they must visit the IRS to discuss some tax discrepancies. 

While in the elevator, we see Waymond transform into “Alpha Waymond,” an alternate reality version of Evelyn’s husband who tells her that they need her to help defeat Jobu Tupaki, a being who is seeking to destroy the entire multiverse.

From there, we enter a kind of “art house meets Marvel” film experience that is nearly impossible to adequately describe. Evelyn travels between various versions of herself (including a Kung Fu master, a film star, an opera diva, and a woman with hot dog fingers), each with skills that are used masterfully, and performed perfectly by Yeoh. 

The entire cast of this movie is exceptional. Quan acts as the soul of the movie, taking something that is completely bonkers and grounding it in deep humanity. Hsu is stunning as the disaffected Joy and nihilistic Jobu Tupaki. Jamie Lee Curtis fully embraces the absurdity of her many characters from a grouchy IRS auditor to a WWE wrestler. James Hong continues his legacy of powerful, memorable characters, transforming from wheelchair-bound grandfather to energetic leader. And Yeoh absolutely shines as she effortlessly transforms through the many, many characters she is asked to play.

Daniels said that they wanted to truly make this film about everything and the “too-much” that they were seeing around them. And this movie truly does include everything. Every frame of the two plus hours is imbued with meaning. This movie is part horror, part sci-fi, part family drama, part comedy, part martial arts. I left this movie exhausted, but in the absolute best way.

I also feel like everything is too much. We may not have access to a multiverse, but the internet has opened us up to the entire world. And while that can allow us to connect in ways we never could before, it also means we are bombarded by every piece of information, all the time. The heart of this movie reminds us that access to everything means nothing if it is not accompanied by kindness. And that even rocks and women with hot dog fingers deserve love.