Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is stuck in a laundromat, married to a spineless optimist Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan), mother to a constantly angry daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and a daughter herself to a demanding father Gong Gong (James Hong) who is visiting from China. She hates to mention her daughter’s lesbian girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel), and she’s preparing for a New Year’s party she doesn’t want to host. Also, she’s dealing with the aggressive, big bad IRS agent Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) over some filing issues. But then something odd happens in the elevator. The world goes a little weird, Waymond takes off his glasses and tells her about a coming danger, writes instructions on a piece of paper, and then blinks the wrong way, returning to his normal self with no apparent memory of what transpired. When she is at her lowest, Evelyn will read those instructions, follow them, and expand her understanding of the multiverse and her place in it.
Evelyn is a renowned martial arts actress attending her latest film premier. Evelyn is one of those women whirling a sign on a street corner to capture the attention of passing cars. Evelyn is an operatic singer of no small ability. Evelyn is a woman in a committed relationship with a much more loving Dierdre Beaubeirdre. Evelyn is a rock. Evelyn is—
Across the multiverse, there are a billion Evelyns, but there’s only one who might be the way to save the universe. You see, a dark presence is making its way from multiverse to multiverse, sowing destruction: Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), and maybe only Evelyn can stop it. She was tied to the person who became that being in one of the other universes (the one where Evelyn actually devised a way to jump from universe to universe, in fact). That other Evelyn pushed her daughter to the limits and ended up breaking Joy’s perception—instead of jumping, she experiences them all at once, and in her youthful way sees no point to anything. Will Evelyn also succumb to existential despair or will she be able to draw her daughter back from these dark emotions? Is there more to existence than the dark bagel of everything, a singularity that swallows up everything it comes into contact with? Daniel Kwan and Daniel Schienert helm a film that balances heart and absurdity, wit and action, hope and despair, youth and maturity, and the relentless draw of dreams in the wild cinematic ride, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022).
You know, I think the best movie of the year might’s hit theaters back in March/April. There are blockbusters doing better business because of a built in fan base hungry for more product in the universe they’ve been supporting for over a decade, now. However, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a standalone film which embraces philosophy, action, emotion, and drama that won me over. It’s a movie that made Trista weep like a child, and I certainly welled up. The next time someone tells you that Hollywood is not taking chances on strange but interesting cinema, ask if they’ve seen Everything Everywhere All At Once. If they haven’t, then they need to correct that oversight immediately; if they have, then remind them that it was made for a fraction of the budget of a Marvel movie, has a dynamite cast, and is one of the strangest, angriest, surprisingly violent, yet heartwarming flicks I’ve seen in the last few years. It is a triumph of visuals, performance, and creativity.
Michelle Yeoh delivers nothing short of a tour de force. Anyone who’s been paying attention to the actress over the course of her career already knowns the breadth of her abilities, both as action hero as well as actor. The writers/directors here understand her ability to perform and they give her plenty of things to do both in a physical sense as well as in a wide range of costume/character performances. Sure, the many faces of Evelyn are all splinters of the same character, but Yeoh invests them with personality quirks that distinguish them. Also, she plays big heart with hot dog fingers and prehensile feet. Yeoh deserves an Academy Award for her work. This film is the perfect capstone and culmination of her career thus far, and I can’t wait for her next project.
James Hong is a beloved actor around our house. Whether it’s voice work or live action, big budgeters or tiny productions like The Vineyard (1989), everything he’s in is a little better for having him there. Here, he gets the chance to shine as a grumpy old man, a disappointment and disappointed man, a proud and prideful man. He plays so many shades of the patriarch, and he does it with sly skill.
Stephanie Hsu plays both the angry young woman and the cooler than thou nihilist. Jobu is the head of a bagel worshipping cult and a child yearning for answers her parents might not have. She has the least number of different characters to portray, and yet she manages to find quirks and telling details to make them come alive.
Ke Huy Quan rocks as both the optimistic but hurting hubby and the hypercapable body jumping man looking for the savior of the universe. But that’s not all! He’s also a successful but heartbroken businessman. He’s a low key savior. He’s the heart and soul of the movie.
Jamie Lee Curtis has so much fun playing the awful IRS agent, the generous hearted IRS agent, the love interest, and the powerful but silent stalker (ala Michael Meyers). Goodness, but she’s cool!
There’s a sense of humor here that is sometimes bawdy, sometimes subtle, sometimes based on observation and sometimes inspired by the wild concepts at play in the story. A movie that can make me honestly guffaw even once is a treasure. This one ran me through the gamut of laughs. I chuckled, chortled, snarfed, snarked, snickered, and had to stop the movie at least once to catch my breath. There are in story gags and metatextual ones, there are nods to the actors and to their characters.
But the heart is there, too. And damn if it’s not involving. Trista and I are sensitized to stories about parents and kids, these days (go figure), and there’s real honesty in the story of Evelyn and Joy. Surprising levels of it. As well, there’s truth to Evelyn and Waymond’s growing inability to communicate. And the many flashbacks to the ways things went (and differed between universes) and the brief visions of the heartbreak and hopes in other worlds only emphasize how fragile our relationships really are, how every decision can take a life in another direction.
For whatever reason, I missed out on the directors’ previous collaboration, Swiss Army Man (2016). I need to fix that. I did catch Scheinert’s quirky crime tale, The Death of Dick Long (2019), and was rather taken by its mix of absurdity and suspense. I look forward to their next original projects as collaborators or individuals.
That the filmmakers made this movie with so much VFX and apparently did it with free online tutorials instead of actual training is pretty darned amazing. The thing just looks cool. Whether we’re watching reality itself fracture like a mirror or a bagel threatening to devour all existence, there are a series of unforgettable images here. Some truly inspired and inspiring stuff.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is a feast of a movie, so much going on, so much painting in the corners, told with wit and verve, performed with ability and energy, and juggling so many unexpected elements. Love this movie. Share this movie. It’s worth seeing as big as possible, but it’s also worth watching with the people nearest and dearest in whatever form you can see it.
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Everything Everywhere All At Once is available in DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD/Blu-ray set, and VOD editions.
Writing for “Sometimes You Eat the Bagel, and Sometimes the Bagel Eats You: Everything Everywhere All At Once” is copyright © 2022 by Daniel R. Robichaud.
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