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DIRECTED BY: Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
FEATURING: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis, James Hong
PLOT: Evelyn Wang is overwhelmed operating a Simi Valley laundromat, caring for her elderly father, enduring an ongoing IRS audit, and trying to maintain her strained relationship with her daughter. Into this maelstrom steps an alternate-universe version of her husband, who informs her that a rage-fueled supervillain incarnation of her daughter is threatening to destroy the entire multiverse. Only Evelyn, using martial artistry and emotional intelligence that she never knew she possessed, can traverse dimensions and embody wildly different iterations of herself to stave off disaster.
BACKGROUND:
- The original script was written with Jackie Chan in mind, with Yeoh envisioned in a supporting role. Once the lead character was switched to a woman, Yeoh was the only choice for the role.
- The Daniels cited inspiration from sources as diverse as the films of Wong Kar-Wai, the video game Everything, and the children’s book “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. “
- The directors began work on the film after turning down an opportunity to work on Marvel’s “Loki” series, itself a show set against the backdrop of a multiverse. The duo worried that other contemporaneous multiverse projects, including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and “Rick and Morty,” would make their concept out-of-date.
- The film was released under different Chinese-language titles depending upon the market, including In an Instant, the Entire Universe in mainland China, Mother’s Multiverse in Taiwan, and Weird Woman Warrior Fucks Around and Saves the Universe in Hong Kong.
- The team of martial arts performers and choreographers includes self-taught brothers Andy and Brian Le. (They are showcased in the fight over a suggestively shaped IRS auditing award.) Daniels discovered them on YouTube and hired them based on their familiarity with Hong Kong-style fighting techniques.
- Appropriate to the diverse backgrounds of her family, Evelyn speaks Mandarin with her husband but Cantonese with her father, while her daughter’s Chinese is that of someone unskilled in the language.
- An unexpectedly dominant force at the 95th Academy Awards, snagging 11 nominations and taking home seven statues for Best Picture (one of only a handful of films with science fiction/fantasy elements ever to take the top prize), Directing, Original Screenplay, Editing, and acting honors for Yeoh, Quan, and Curtis. More importantly, Yeoh took home the Weirdcademy Award for Best Actress.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: I know, I know. The hot dog fingers, right? They do make for a superb visual shorthand (sorry) for the film’s breed of weirdness, it’s true, especially when an alternate Jamie Lee Curtis uses her encased-meat digits to tickle the ivories in a rendition of “Clair de Lune.” But is it truly greater than a spectacular bagel that truly has everything on it? Or the transdimensional power of eating lip balm to imbue the consumer with extensive martial arts abilities? Or the introspective moment featuring two rocks as the only souls in the world? EEAAO luxuriates both the oddities of universes different from our own and the peculiarities unique to each realm. Fortunately, the film spares us from having to pick one of them by concocting a spectacular montage of our heroine across all universes and timelines, including some we will never explore outside of this split-second vision. It’s a dizzying triumph of editing and a wonderful visualization of both Evelyn’s dilemma and her power.
TWO WEIRD THINGS: Hot dog fingers; rocky relationship
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Everything Everywhere All At Once is a family drama festooned with the trappings of Matrix-style ontological discussions, multiversal alternates, elaborate martial arts set-pieces, and parodies both reverential and cheeky. That mix alone would garner our attention, and the decision to center the story on characters well outside the Hollywood norm —Asian, immigrant, working-class, gay—further pushes it outside the mainstream. On top of that, the glorious and unexpected choice to ground all this mayhem in an atmosphere of playfulness and joy gives the film further offbeat credentials. It exemplifies this movie’s wonderfully deranged logic to employ googly eyes to stave off the apocalypse. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fun.
Original trailer for Everything Everywhere all at Once
COMMENTS: “I thought you said when she says (stuff) like that, it means she cares.” Poor Becky. As the good-natured girlfriend of aggrieved daughter Joy, she tries mightily to understand the family rules, but there’s really no way for her to appreciate that while matriarch Evelyn may have named her daughter Joy, she personally operates on misery and self-recrimination. Evelyn yearns for the approval of her judgmental father, rues her impulsive choice to marry an unambitious husband, scorns the array of customers that patronize her laundry, and shows affection for her only child only through cutting criticism, as though Laurie Metcalf had been transplanted out of Lady Bird into a Chinese laundry in Simi Valley. It’s hard to make a new choice when the only thing you know is pain. But maybe when you have the choices laid out before you… when you have ALL the choices laid out before you…
The road not taken is a familiar theme, and Everything Everywhere is a grand salute to finding a new path where none was visible before. The unique territory that this story stakes out for itself is to not merely go from the ridiculous to the sublime, but to contend that the ridiculous is the sublime. A thoughtful conversation between two adults dressed to the nines in evening finery sits comfortably next to a raucous fight scene in which one of the participants gets an award for accountancy jammed up his butt. Taking the conventions of gymnastic hand-to-hand combat and finding a new direction in which it can evolve is one of Everything’s curious gifts. When finally confronted with her daughter’s apocalyptic avatar, Evelyn responds with the spectacular fight choreography… of love. Assailants become life partners, karate chops provide chiropractic care, nunchucks turn into puppies. Just as Evelyn transforms her harshness into empathy and acceptance, so are the very tools of film combat re-designed to deliver happiness.
Everything Everywhere suggests that the Daniels are drawn to the theme of love amidst the insanity of life. Kwan and Scheinert showed their penchant for finding sweetness in the absurd in Swiss Army Man, and they go much further here. Nonsense literally triggers transdimensional travel, with devoured Chapsticks, horribly placed paper cuts, and unexpected professions of love all enabling key jumps and new abilities. The range of settings and milieus for Evelyn to explore is truly breathtaking. We spend time in some, from posh Evelyn and Waymond’s meeting in an I’m In the Mood For Love universe to an odd Ratatouille pastiche that transfers the action to a hibachi restaurant, complete with Randy Newman as the voice of the raccoon hiding in the chef’s hat. But for each of those, there are dozens more that flash by in the blink of an eye: Crayon World to Piñata World to Anime World, murder mystery to prison drama to YouTube expose of the Illuminati, monster-Evelyn to statue-Evelyn to cat-Evelyn. It’s to the Daniels’ credit that they insist on piling on more and more, never losing track of all the threads they weave together.
An important element of the film’s success is the array of casting choices that would not have been Variety’s pick. Reclaiming Quan, a fondly remembered 80s child star whose prospects for adult success were diminished by institutional racism, is a wonderful surprise, as is deploying nepo-baby, scream queen, and light comedian Curtis as a humorless harridan. The presence of Hong, a legendary journeyman actor with a career spanning eight decades, highlights the film’s still-revolutionary focus on an Asian family in America. Hsu, in her parade of fantastic costumes (courtesy of designer Shirley Kurata), uses her status as a relative newcomer (her big breakthrough came in Broadway musical theater) to define the cultural and generational gaps that isolate her. (She also delivers a pitch-perfect delivery of the one-liner, “Organic.”) But this is Yeoh’s picture through and through. She finally claims the Hollywood spotlight for herself, and owns it. Even as she seems bewildered by all that surrounds her, she is a commanding presence. Rather than turning the audience against her, she finds charm in her tone-deaf ignorance of the feelings of others. Her beauty, lithe grace (witness her immensely powerful pinky finger in fight scenes), and rich characterization all contribute to make Evelyn real in every universe, so much so that even when she is transformed into a rock, Yeoh still feels deeply present in the moment.
The mainstream success of Everything Everywhere could be alarming to the lovers of weird cinema. After all, if it’s winning all the awards, how weird can it be? Revisiting the film is reassuring proof that it’s the genuine article. The multiversal elements are familiar, and Hong Kong action worked its way into general film language a while ago. But the accents are completely original (to repeat: hot dog fingers), and nobody has ever put everything together quite like Everything Everywhere All At Once. Like the bagel it references, the film is a lot of flavors packed into each bite, and the result is delicious.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
OFFICIAL SITES:
Everything Everywhere All At Once | A24 – Distributor A24’s original modest site
Everything Everywhere All at Once | Official Movie Site | Lionsgate – Physical media distributor Lionsgate’s Everything page has high-res stills, a blooper reel, and a clip
IMDB LINK: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:
Spark Notes: Everything Everywhere All At Once – The popular online study guide service breaks down the film’s plot and narrative devices
Vanity Fair: The Making of Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Rock World – The Daniels explain the origin of the scene where mother and daughter converse in a very low-intensity environment
The Astromech: Exploring the Philosophical and Thematic Depths of Daniels’ Film – An analysis of the movie’s philosophical elements, including nihilism, absurdism, and surrealism
Adobe Video & Motion: Editing ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ w/ Adobe Premiere Pro | Behind the Scenes – Editor Paul Rogers describes his use of effects tools used to assemble the myriad dimensions into a coherent story
The Art of Costume Blogcast: S2 Episode 50 – The costuming experts turn their attention to Shirley Kurata’s work on the film, including the hot dog fingers
Song Exploder: Episode 245: Son Lux (Featuring Mitski & David Byrne) – Host Hrishikesh Hirway deconstructs the end credit song “This is a Life” with the help of co-composer Ryan Lott and the Daniels
Oscar speeches – This website is officially on record as stating, “The Oscars are a joke, and everyone knows it.” Nevertheless, the acceptance speeches from Yeoh, Quan, and Curtis are notably emotional and valedictory, as these things go
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) – Gregory J. Smalley’s original candidate review.
HOME VIDEO INFO:
Everything Everywhere all at Once is available from Lionsgate on DVD (buy), Blu-ray (buy), or 4K UHD (which package includes a standard Blu-ray, for basically the same price as the standalone Blu) (buy). The formats differ in audiovisual quality only: all versions deliver commentary by the Daniels, several featurettes, deleted scenes and outtakes, and trailers for this and other A24 films.
A24 offers a lavish special edition (buy) on 4K UHD only, with new featurettes exclusive to this edition, a second commentary by the producers and production design team to go along with the Daniels’ track, and two Daniels shorts. The package also includes physical memorabilia: a booklet, plus a multiverse map and reproductions of Evelyn’s receipts for the IRS audit.
Everything is easy to find almost everywhere for VOD rental.
“Revisiting the film is reassuring proof that it’s the genuine article.” Beautiful way to put it. A one-of-a-kind cinematic masterpiece, and my #1 to date. It only works because the weirdness is barbell’ed by sheer humanity (something movies that try too hard to be weird for their own sake omit). They also had to get weird out of sheer resourcefulness and budgetary limitations, so some Sweding-adjacent vibe bleeds thru in the best of ways. The musical score is its own luminous character and is downright bizarre as well, equal parts catchy-melodic and flitting foley during the kindness fight and other pieces.
Finally! I knew this would land on the Apocrypha when I saw it in theaters.