Everything Everywhere All at Once lives up to its title, which might be off-putting to some. It’s an acquired taste that I ultimately acquired but only after additional viewings. In fact, the more I watch it now, the more I glean from it. I knew little about it at first, other than it was part comedy, part drama, part action-adventure, part fantasy, and part science fiction—the latter of which is a new genre for a Best Picture–winner. Then, POW!! It was total sensory overload the first time around, but I managed to make it through because of the engaging cast and the ambitious premise. Further screenings allowed me to wrap my head around it a bit more. Now I can say I truly love it and marvel at the details. There is much to experience and savor here—and, yes, perhaps too much for some.
The story starts simply enough with a reflection in a table mirror of a happy family. The mother, father, and daughter are smiling together and singing karaoke. Lilting piano music in the background evokes the alternating melodic thirds from the musical bridge of “Over the Rainbow.” Suddenly, the image vanishes, and the camera slowly pushes into the mirror. We go “through the looking glass” with contrasting impressions of the people we’ve just seen. And in these opening moments, the filmmakers (aka the “Daniels”) have already given a subtle nod to two of my favorite stories ever.
Evelyn Wang (Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh) is clearly in over her head. She sits at her dining table in a cluttered apartment with paper receipts spread out everywhere. Piles of bulging laundry bags loom behind her, stacked on shelves. One of them has googly eyes stuck to it. Her husband Waymond enters (Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan). We see him from behind, yet his face is visible in the reflection of a second mirror. Waymond wants to talk to Evelyn about something important, but she is mired in immediate details. She’s trying to cook noodles for everyone, organize tax receipts, and worry about which paint should be applied to a ceiling stain in their laundromat business downstairs—all this while prepping for a big party with her elderly father on hand to attend.
Waymond tries to calm her, but Evelyn is too addled and agitated to listen. She races out of the room, and we see that her husband is holding legal documents that he has been trying to give to her. … Divorce papers.
If you can’t tell yet, there’s a lot to digest in these initial moments. The same is true for the remaining running time. It never lets up.
Enter the ironically named “Joy” (Oscar-nominee Stephanie Hsu in a brilliant performance). She is their morose daughter who waits downstairs in the laundromat with her girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel). Joy needs to talk to her mother about something important, but they are all late for an appointment with “Miss Deirdre,” and Joy has been asked to accompany them to assist with their English comprehension. Did I mention much of this initial dialogue is in Mandarin and Cantonese with English subtitles? Becky has been recruited by Waymond to look after Evelyn’s father Gong Gong, which means “Grandpa” (played by the legendary James Hong). But Evelyn is having none of it. She is reluctantly adapting to the notion of her daughter having a girlfriend—and a non-Asian one, at that—but since they’re late to their meeting, this will all have to wait.
A hint of what’s to come is evident during the initial chaos in the form of background glitches on the laundromat’s multi-camera surveillance monitors. We see Waymond on the display screens, leaping and flipping around like a martial-arts action hero among the rows of washers and dryers. Joy and Becky decide to leave when Evelyn won’t acknowledge them as a couple in front of her father, so Evelyn and Waymond take Gong Gong with them to their meeting, presided over by IRS auditing agent Deirdre Beaubeirdre (… banana-fanna fo-feirdre …?), played by a dowdy, dour, and deliciously offbeat Jamie Lee Curtis in her Oscar-winning performance.
During their elevator ride, just before the meeting, Waymond is jolted by an unseen force. He removes his glasses and opens his umbrella to block the elevator’s security camera. His personality is transformed. He speaks rapidly in an intense voice with a strength unseen until this moment. He warns Evelyn that she may be in grave danger, then fastens Bluetooth earpieces on both of her ears. Much to her objection and confusion, he proceeds to download an app to her phone with a screen that reads “Alternate Life-Path Scanning …” while scribbling instructions for her on the back of a file folder. As the app finishes installing, Evelyn’s life suddenly flashes before her eyes. We get her entire backstory up to this moment. We see her birth, her father’s displeasure in her gender, her initial love for Waymond, her parents’ disapproval of them both, their elopement and immigration to America, the purchase of their laundromat, the birth of Joy, Evelyn’s increased alienation from her daughter, and her father’s onset of senility. Thus begins the setup for a mind-blowing roller-coaster ride as the story kicks into high gear.
Without describing and detailing each plot point and astonishing development from here on in, I’ll try to summarize the basic premise as best I see it. This film suggests that every single decision we make, big or small, changes the course of our lives. The same is true for everyone else. All of us have an infinite number of potential outcomes and paths. The idea is that each of these deviating paths creates its own universe of “what might have been,” had we followed it. So it’s an infinite number of “multiverses” coexisting. The rules take on an absurdist approach when it’s discovered that if you initiate an action or activity that is statistically unlikely or illogical, like putting your shoes on the wrong feet or eating an entire tube of Chapstick, you create a glitch in your immediate universe. Taking advantage of this moment with a boost from breakthrough technology, you can then “jump” to an alternate universe in your evolving story.
That’s the big-picture concept. And it’s a doozy.
Now add to the mix that this is really a “small” story about a family trying to connect to each other: Joy, the lost and damaged daughter who turns out to be the nihilistic villain in most of these multiverses; the defeated husband Waymond, who loves his wife but has given up hope that things will change between them and wants out; and Evelyn, the hardworking mother who tries to hold everything and everyone together but has a narrow vision of her life and others. There might be an infinite number of decisions in any moment that can sway the outcome to our narratives, still it’s the fundamental connection in this chaos that holds us together and keeps us together.
There’s more to it than that, but in a nutshell, this is what I take away from it.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is among the most ambitious and audacious films ever to win Best Picture. Even with subsequent viewings I keep thinking it’s going to derail at every turn, and it almost does several times. What holds it together is the sheer talent in front of and behind the camera, the fearless risk-taking in regard to all aspects of production, the boundless ingenuity from exuberant filmmakers who are too energized to ponder limitations, and the heart and humor on display from everyone involved. It’s a film that improves, expands, and expounds on its heady concept each time I see it—like the infinite number of multiverses depicted. And I can’t wait to go on the journey again.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Director | Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (aka the “Daniels”) |
Primary Cast | Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., Biff Wiff, Sunita Mani, Aaron Lazar, Brian Le, Andy Le |
Familiar Faces | none (no repeat performers from the previous winning films) |
Firsts | First film in the science-fiction genre to win Best Picture, Michelle Yeoh is the first Best Actress–winner to identify as Asian, Daniel Kwan is the first person of Chinese descent to win Best Original Screenplay, Ke Huy Quan is the first actor born in Vietnam to win an Oscar |
Total Wins | 7 (Picture, Director, Actress: Michelle Yeoh, Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan, Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis, Screenplay: Original, Editing) |
Total Nominations | 11 (Picture, Director, Actress: Michelle Yeoh, Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan, Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis, Supporting Actress: Stephanie Hsu, Screenplay: Original, Costume Design, Editing, Score, Song: “This Is a Life”) |
Viewing Format | Blu-ray Disc |