I’m not sure where to begin with Everything Everywhere All At Once, a movie more audaciously expansive than even its title suggests.
Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn Wang, a fiftysomething Chinese-American woman not so much stuck in a rut as overwhelmed by the various ruts in her life: the failing laundromat she runs with her seemingly spineless husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan); her aged, oppressive father (James Hong), who lives with them; her standoffish daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), whose romantic relationship with another woman Evelyn tolerates, but doesn’t fully embrace. The opening section of the film, written and directed by the filmmaking team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (often credited as The Daniels), details the mounting pressures on Evelyn with quick edits and frequent pans and zooms. In only a few minutes, our heart palpitations match Evelyn’s.
It’s all enough to make a woman crack, but something else happens: she gets pulled into an adventure plot involving multiple universes, each tracing an alternate path her life could have taken. What follows seems to be just about any insane notion that popped into The Daniels’ heads: a fanny pack used as a lethal weapon in one of the many well-choreographed fight sequences; love scenes with characters who have hot dogs for fingers; a hysterical riff on Ratatouille called “Raccacooni;” and a deeply moving, subtitled conversation about the nature of existence between two rocks. (Not every idea works, but when you’re throwing 30 at the screen every 15 minutes, plenty will.)
Some viewers will certainly find all the weirdness wearying; I’ll confess I couldn’t quite keep up with the rules of the movie’s overarching “mega-universe.” Yet, as with the time-travel conceit of Back to the Future, the “science” doesn’t need to entirely check out if the emotions ring true. And thanks to Yeoh (as well as Quan, for reasons I shouldn’t spoil), that’s the case here. We’re completely enthralled by Evelyn because of the combination of stringency and vulnerability Yeoh conveys in that opening sequence; there’s both a hardness and a deep anxiety in her eyes. And she holds on to this humanity with every “Evelyn” she plays, rooting the more outlandish elements—the costumes, the makeup, the comedic stunt work—in the same complicated psychology: that of a floundering woman who doesn’t know how to move her life forward.
And so Everything Everywhere All At Once is at once a showcase for one of the world’s greatest acting talents and a manic meditation on reality, regret, and the richness of family bonds. It’s a movie that’s difficult to describe, but easy to love.
(3/28/2022)
