In Everything Everywhere All At Once, we follow Chinese-American laundromat owner Evelyn Wang, who is recruited to save the universe from an incoming multiverse threat.
As she leans into the power and skills of her alternate self from other dimensions, she learns more about herself and her family.
The chaotic genre-jumping spectacle manages to pull a wide range of elements together around a powerful emotional core, delivering a hilarious and deeply affecting two hours.
This film is built around two phenomenal performances from Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn, and Stephanie Hsu as her daughter Joy. Yeoh shows an incredible amount of range, and while we’re used to seeing her as a badass fighter in shows like Star Trek: Discovery or her many martial arts movie appearances, it’s rarer for her to be able to show real vulnerability.
The counterpoint to Yeoh’s strained restraint is Hsu, who gets to be cool in a different way. As the reality-hopping shenanigans occur, she gets some incredible outfits designed by Shirley Kurata, carrying them with confidence and presence.
At the same time, the moments where she’s desperately trying to connect with her mother (a distance in part caused by the family’s homophobia), are deeply emotionally affecting. The pain she exudes throughout is palpable, even just in the tone of her voice as she tries over and over to get her mother to listen.
Other performers also do great jobs, most notably Ke Huy Quan as Evelyn’s endearing, bumbling, but good-hearted husband Waymond. The combination of his performance and the script give the role a surprising amount of depth – particularly in the back half.
In a world where everything is a superhero movie, sequel, or remake. I have been starting to feel like originality in film is hard to come by.... until this mind f*ck of a film comes out of nowhere and blows my mind.
Even if its not your cup of tea you have to respect the sheer amount of creativity, originality, and the overall risk these filmmakers took. It's funny, weird, emotional, raunchy, sad all at once. IT IS EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE.
Everything was amazing and well-executed here, and on a relatively small film budget as well.
Incredibly interesting take on the multiverse as well.
Additional review from Oluwatayo Adewole