Review: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

 Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Rated R for some violence, sexual material and language

Score: 5 out of 5

Everything Everywhere All at Once may not have quite delivered, well, absolutely everything one can possibly come up with, but it sure did try. It is an utter madhouse of a martial arts action movie, a madcap comedy, an immigrant family drama, and a sci-fi multiverse epic all in one, a film that I’ve seen compared to both the 2011 slasher parody Detention and the 2007 mind-screw cult classic Southland Tales, but a version of those films that actually managed to succeed at everything it set out to accomplish. Rather ironic, then, given that its protagonist is somebody who has failed at everything she’s tried to accomplish. The writer/director duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (credited together as simply Daniels) delivered what is likely to go down as one of the best movies of the year, one that I already plan on rewatching in theaters as soon as I possibly can.

We start the film with Michelle Yeoh, the famed Hong Kong action movie legend, playing the least Michelle Yeoh-esque character possible: Evelyn Wang, a middle-aged owner of a failing laundromat whose husband Waymond is getting ready to file for divorce, whose daughter Joy hates her because she won’t accept her relationship with another woman, whose father Gong Gong is about to arrive from China to see what a mess her life is, and who’s in trouble with the IRS because of all the things she’s tried to deduct from her tax bill as “business expenses”. In short, she’s the last type of person you’d expect to react well to suddenly being told by Waymond, his personality having shifted on a dime from that of her bumbling husband to an action hero, that she is the key to saving not only the world, or even the universe, but every possible universe that exists from a malevolent being known as Jobu Tupaki. (My dad, a guy who normally has no time for sci-fi or fantasy movies that aren’t Independence Day, can relate.) Then she watches “Waymond” suddenly clobber a group of guards at the IRS office armed with only his fanny pack, and then he teaches Evelyn how to access the same abilities he has. Cue Evelyn learning to access the powers of every other version of herself – a world where she became a Hong Kong martial arts movie superstar (i.e. had Yeoh’s career), one where she became a hibachi chef, one where she was blinded as a child and became an opera singer, even one where humans evolved hot dog-like appendages on their hands instead of fingers (don’t ask) – and discovering just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I can’t even begin to describe half of what happens in this movie, in no small part because I don’t want to spoil the fun, but also because it’s the kind of movie where hinting at anything that goes on past the first act will probably make you go “this guy’s losing it” if you haven’t already seen it. All I can say is that it’s a movie where going back and watching it again – because yes, this is absolutely a movie that deserves to be seen more than once – not only made everything click together in my head, it deepened my appreciation for what Daniels managed to pull off, because this is a movie where there are about ten different things going on at once past a certain point (everything, everywhere, you might say) and yet I was invested in every last one of them.

Its genius is that it takes the sci-fi idea of the multiverse and doesn’t just use it to tell a sci-fi plot about saving the multiverse, it also makes it personal by having the crux of the film be about Evelyn exploring all the ways in which her life could’ve been so much better. Evelyn, you see, has one defining personality trait, and that is the fact that she has been an utter fuck-up throughout her life, as evidenced by how her business is struggling, her family hates her, and she’s being investigated by the IRS. We see, when the IRS agent Deirdre is showing her all the receipts for the various things she’s bought, that she’s dabbled in countless hobbies over the years and never took to any of them, likely failing at them just as badly as she’s failed at life in general. Yeoh is phenomenal as someone who looks utterly pathetic on the surface, somebody for whom the American Dream will only be experienced by her daughter after she likely cuts all ties with her in her advancing age, a role so unlike the kinds of badass warrior women Yeoh is known for playing that, when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I barely recognized her – which makes it that much more impressive how easily she transitions to her usual form after the alternate universe version of her husband Waymond helps her unlock the secrets of the multiverse.

And when it comes to Waymond, let’s just say I was not expecting Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to have this movie in him. While Yeoh gets the most room to shine, Ke Huy Quan steals the show as one of the most important supporting players, playing both “Alpha Waymond” as an affectionate, gloriously over-the-top parody of a Hong Kong action hero and Evelyn’s husband Waymond as a long-suffering spouse who seemingly understands deep down that he has gone down the same terribly mediocre path as his wife and has just about had enough, not least of all with her. He is a key part of this film’s heart and soul, elevating it from just a madcap sci-fi martial arts comedy into something approaching greatness, and Quan's performance, not the slightest bit rusty after a twenty-year retirement from acting, demonstrates what a shame it was that his acting career had previously fizzled out in the '90s thanks to Hollywood's inability to figure out what to do with him.

And pushing the film over the top into actual greatness comes Stephanie Hsu as Evelyn’s daughter Joy. It’s not much of a twist to say this given how early the film reveals it, so I’ll spill it now: she, or rather another universe’s version of her, is the villain Jobu Tupaki, intimately connected to all the sci-fi madness Evelyn encounters. The real twist with her comes later, so I’ll just say that Hsu was a damn memorable sight as both Joy and Jobu, one of the all-time great campy, flamboyant villains I’ve seen and also somebody who has been, perhaps more than anyone else, deeply hurt in life by her mother’s failings. Joy is a parent’s worst nightmare come to life, a child who despises you and everything you stand for, and deep down, you know that it’s your own damn fault. Jobu takes that nightmare and turns it into a literal monster, a supervillain wearing your daughter’s face with a grudge against you personally, eager to show you all the ways in which you’ve failed. Together, Joy and Waymond make Evelyn’s journey into one about a broken, failing family with a pathetic excuse for a matriarch who’s forced to realize how her bad decisions have not only ruined her life but hurt those around her. By the end, I wanted to see every version of Evelyn overcome all of this and succeed, not just for the sake of the multiverse but for her own sake and that of her family.

And I haven’t even gotten into the really crazy stuff yet! I haven’t seen Daniels’ feature film debut Swiss Army Man, but I have seen, multiple times, the rather… memorable music video they made for DJ Snake and Lil’ Jon’s “Turn Down for What”, and not knowing who they were until I got home after the movie and looked them up, I can absolutely see the family resemblance. Once this film got going, it felt like that video stretched out to feature length with maybe one less line of cocaine in its system, such was the manic energy of its near-constant fight scenes and the wild imagery it presented both during them and in between. (I will never look at fanny packs or everything bagels the same way again.) The action was stylized and exciting to the point that I almost forgot that most of the movie took place in an IRS office building, especially when Daniels started fully exploiting the film’s multiverse conceit to let Jobu Tupaki show off the full extent of her near-godlike reality-warping powers. The supporting cast was filled with a who's who of famous faces both Western and Eastern, the imagery could get straight into South Park levels of shock value (four words: Auditor of the Month), and the film always felt like it was on a roll. This was not a movie that looked or felt like it was made on an A24 indie budget, let’s put it that way.

The Bottom Line

Everything Everywhere All at Once is damn near a masterpiece that succeeds with flying colors at everything it sets out to accomplish, and one that’s gonna be pretty hard to dethrone as my pick for the best film of 2022 when all is said and done.