EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

"When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I learned to survive through everything." - Waymond Wang

What do butt plugs, taxes, everything bagels, and generational trauma have in common? Absolutely nothing, but somehow, with the help of overactive imaginations or several riotous acid trips, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (also known as The Daniels) seamlessly did. Their genre-bending, metaphysically driven new comedy drama ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ pushes the boundaries of narrative norms and dissects the infinitesimal nature of human existence. Visually dazzling and artistically groundbreaking, The Daniels bring to screen the craziest fever dream in recent memory.

The film centers around Evelyn, Waymond, and Joy Wang, a mundane Asian-American family who appear a little in over their head with their family owned laundromat. Overwhelmed with bills, customers and her strained relationship with her daughter, Evelyn reflects on her pedestrian lifestyle and stagnant marriage. One day, on their way to their tax accountant, Evelyn is visited by a different version of Waymond from an alternate universe, quickly turning their banal tax visit into a fight to save the multiverse. Outlandish and touching, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ utilizes every arbitrary narrative possibility and enlists the human spectrum of emotions to cultivate one of the most creative cinematic adventures ever.

Within the last decade, Hollywood’s fixed genres have seen a slight dissolution. ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is easily one of the most difficult to classify. First and foremost, the narrative is a comedic juggernaut, with outrageousness complementing hilarity like never before. Between bludgeoning each other with massive dildos, putting everything in existence on an everything bagel, and fight sequences with buttplugs, everything progressively gets more and more bizarre. As universe after universe is introduced, the absurdity of talking rocks and hotdog fingers start to resonate on a more sensitive wavelength. Wrapped delicately around this tempestuous nebulous of lunacy is a remarkably edifying tale about the lengths a mother will go to fix her broken family.

Evelyn has spent her entire life as an observer, never taking risks and always playing the dutiful wife. She sees who she could have been through all these different versions of herself–all her regrets, all her fears, every excuse she ever made to keep her chained to this ‘insignificant’ version of herself. Sifting through the overwhelming amount of visuals and multiverse scenarios, the audience, as well as Evelyn, might find it difficult to maintain a grasp on what exactly is the point of it all. And that is what is so brilliant about this construction of seemingly random images and storylines. The Daniels exquisitely design a narrative to induce anxiety, one that represents the overbearing nature of life, responsibility, and familial burden. The plot is a lot to digest… keeping up with every character’s variant is difficult… maintaining order amidst all the chaos is exhausting. Because that’s exactly what existence is, everything everywhere all at once.

The stunningly choreographed action encompasses a perfect metaphorical hyperbole amidst all the throat punches and choke holds: don’t take anything for granted. Having cultural pressure and unattainable expectations from her father, Evelyn projects her own insecurities and subconscious traumas onto Waymond and Joy. Fighting multiversal enemies comes naturally; her true Goliath is built off years of generational strain her father and society imposed on her. Beneath the hodgepodge of preposterous subject matter and fast-paced editing is a story about self discovery. How a woman can reconnect with her family after convincing herself none of them would ever amount to anything. How, after all these years of folding laundry and fussing about nothing, after witnessing the infinite amount of places she could be, she finally realizes what she has been waiting for her entire life has been in front of her the whole time.

One word to describe The Daniels’ ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’: fearless. The sheer amount of brain power, ingenuity, and precision it took to produce something of this caliber is astounding. Never has a story so complicated, interconnected, and audacious flowed so effortlessly. As the film devolves, layer by layer of a perfectly constructed narrative exposition is unraveled. Every scene is tactfully put together, every joke lands, every visual decision enhances the screenplay. Even though a million and one series of events happen, every single one feels necessary to add to the immensely intricate puzzle that can only be seen when the credits start rolling. Whether a comedy, action, fantasy or drama–it doesn’t matter–because at the end of the day, nothing does.