An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure where she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led.
It’s days later, and I still can’t stop thinking about this movie. Since their exciting debut with the music video for Turn Down For What and an impressive freshman film, “Swiss Army Man,” directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert have a name in this business as one-of-a-kind visionaries. Even on their own, Scheinert’s “The Death of Dick Long” proved to be one of my favorite movies of the year. This new entry pairs the corpulent, imaginary, comical, and heart-felt filmmakers with a multiverse story miles above any Spider-Man or Dr. Strange team-up. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” captures the overwhelming sensation of everyday existence and tackles aimless existential musing by pairing it with a homemade taut action thriller spanning every dimension with legendary actress Michelle Yeoh anchoring the entire project in a career-defining performance.
The movie follows Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), a Laundromat owner and a constant disappointment to her father. On the ever of her father’s visit, she’s called to the IRS office to “fix” her taxes while at the same time her husband asks for a divorce, and her daughter comes out to her. While initially she’s knocked out of her seemingly pedestrian life, everything changes when a husband from another dimension finds her and asks her to save the multiverse from an evil being known as Jobu Topacky. Evelyn’s way in over her head, and no amount of matrix-style combat downloading can help her tackle the great enemy AND save her family. It will take Evelyn’s utmost empathy to heal the rupture in her family, save the multiverse, and possibly avoid committing tax fraud.
Everything about this movie feels bombastic and gentle at the same time. While its action sequences are loud, aggressive, motion-ramped kung fu fights, its actors whine and needle each other with the best intentions. Ke Huy Quan anchors the film as Evelyn’s husband, Waymond, a goofy space cadet just as likely to make things worse as he is to save the day. Evelyn’s tenuous romance with her husband hinges around her leaving her family behind to start a new one in America. James Hong plays her overbearing father to great success. So rarely and consistently does Hong get to have his action beats and tear-jerker moments, but the movie doles them out en masse. Stephanie Hsu carries another leg of the table with her brilliant aimless daughter. The generational trauma of being a Chinese woman in an immigrant family feels etched into her frown lines and severe disdain. By the time we meet her in this movie, she’s done helping her family and sees the only way forward is to cut her mother off entirely. Lastly, there’s Jamie Lee Curtis, who is having the time of her life. Frumpy Jamie’s Tax Assessor Deirdre occupies much space as a villain or antagonist. She gets her kung fu fights but also her humanization. In the end, no one in this movie is a clear-cut hero or villain.
The Daniels have a powerful knack for not just mashing genres but colliding formats and styles together, so thoroughly calling it a kaleidoscope of influence would be an insult. Only these guys can carry a film containing multiple universes, have it feel very DIY at times, and still carry the gravity of every scene. Their love for the source material shines in every film frame, and it’s impossible not to fall in love. Only these guys could take rock puppets and make them profound (in much the same way they made farts profound in Paul Dano-starring “Swiss Army Man”).
Their sense of pacing is incredible, for starters. Fight sequences develop with beats and architecturally significant moments fit within the fistfights to the point it’s art more than entertainment. The camera whips and pans, racks and blurs, often all in one take beyond kinetic. However, it all serves a purpose, and they often know how to layer in elements that aren’t simple live-action. It’s part of the sheer wonder of the movie. Everyone has that friend simply on another planet, and we’re lucky to be in their orbit. This movie feels like that.
This gonzo action drama might sound like some artful John Wick, but there’s a profound meaning. Not content to rest on the basics of existentialism, the two filmmakers (who also wrote the script) deign to answer the question: If nothing matters, why do anything at all? I’d get that quote tattooed on my body in a scene that rocked me to my core. They respond: We can do whatever we want. Nothing matters. They guide us through the journey of existential doubt: the melancholy of feeling insignificant, the disappointment in never making an impact, the self-loathing at being unable to develop into something greater, the forced realization that we matter to our loved ones, and finally, the profound freedom that we are free to make our way in this chaotic and messy multiverse. In a world where we might think we’re boring for doing taxes and laundry, some version of us in another universe says, “I would’ve loved to do taxes and laundry with you in another life.” It’s sentimental and profound, and the answer to the question so many edge lords like to pretend invalidates their feelings of failure. It says that we may not amount to much, but just existing is more than enough.
I could wax poetic about this film for decades. I will never forget the powerful spell the film cast on me. I laughed my ass off. I cried deeply. I left feeling refreshed as if my existence had been reaffirmed by two strangers who made a goofy action flick. It’s a film that gets to have its stupid hot-dogs-for-fingers jokes AND its emotionally charged climax. It can have its cake, eat it, and make a joke out of the inevitable cake farts later. I have to rewatch this more than any movie I’ve seen in theaters thus far, and I genuinely can’t recommend it enough. It’ll seem weird to the uninitiated, but it’s far and away some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen.
P.S. I can’t stop thinking how perfect these two would be to direct an episode of “Community,” and now that’s all I want in life.
Now Playing in Select Theaters, and Nationwide Friday, April 8th
The main cast for this should definitely be rewarded come Oscar time. It\’s been said those acting awards are more given to \”Most Acting\” as opposed to \”Best Acting\”, but here they manage to do both at once!