Everything Everywhere All at Once: A Multiverse Madness

With an immaculate screenplay and an exceptional cast and a beautiful amalgamation of multiple genres, Everything Everywhere All at Once makes for a phenomenal film.

Directed by The Daniels (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert), the movie makes you jump through verses just to boil it down to two important themes, family and love.

Quick Synopsis: A Chinese immigrant, tired of her ordinary life and her broken family jumps into a multiverse adventure where she can save lives by jumping into lives she could've led.

The movie starts off with Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), the matriarch of the Wang family trying to save her dying laundromat that is being audited by an IRS agent, Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis). Evelyn's character is full of anxiety, not only because of her tax issue but also because of her father Gong Gong's (James Hong) arrival from China. You can witness the desperation in her eyes as she is trying to multitask smoothly but sadly failing at it. Her desperation is due to her father's high expectations of her. Then we have the patriarch of the family, Waymond (Key Huy Quan). He's the complete opposite of his wife, a joyful man who doesn't fail to smile even if they're in a knee-deep situation. Then arrives, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), a seemingly agitated girl who wants her mother to accept her girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel). The immense tension between Evelyn and Joy shows the former's disdain towards her daughter's choices in life.

The chaos in the Wang family is a testament to their familial problems, a fractured household with generational differences that have led to immense trauma. Where you can sense the resentment. Joy is subjected to her mother's expectations, to be a modest Chinese girl. Evelyn's feelings stem from her estranged relationship with her father Gong Gong, who looks down upon her for marrying Waymond and moving to America. As we progress forward, we're in the IRS building with the Wang family sans Joy where their agent Deirdre warns how "it does not look good". All of sudden, the loving Waymond suddenly switches and we're greeted with Alpha Waymand who is from Alphaverse. He tells her that she is the key to saving all the other multiverses.

Throughout the movie, you'll witness the cinematic homage that the Daniels have paid i.e. The Matrix. Evelyn has the ability to attain all the key qualities of her counterparts who reside in different multiverses, hence we're introduced to the term Verse Jumping. As serious as this whole plot sounds, you'll be surprised to see the streaks of humor that have been incorporated throughout Evelyn's heroic journey (especially when you see the odd acts that everyone has to do to verse jump). There are several other movies going on in this one movie, choices that Evelyn could've made instead of choosing to marry her husband Waymand. What she thought would be an escape turned out to be a way for her to reconnect with her family, through her multiverse versions like a hibachi chef, a movie star, a rock, etc. It's mesmerizing to see how they've taken such a simple idea of contemplating your life decisions and have given it a whole new twist.

As the plot thickens, we see more interactions of multiverse versions of Evelyn with Jobu Tupaki who has taken over Joy's body. This is a very great representation of the mother-daughter duo, and how in the parallel universe they are at odds. we're then acquainted with the 'Everything Bagel' that essentially can destroy all the other multiverses. The Everything Bagel is a depiction of darkness and despair, that Joy wants to get sucked into because of her desperate attempts to please her mother. At the end of the day, it shows the ground reality of the Wang family and their emotional regression, which has led to immense detachment in the family.

Marriage is another sub-theme in the movie. How Waymand wants to dissolve his marriage but Evelyn refuses to do so as it's not right. In a split moment, you can see Waymand admiring an aged couple who are seen being affectionate towards each other. We even see in an alternate universe how celebrity Evelyn is having a discussion with businessman Waymand on how if they were married things would've been different. Another cinematic homage to Wong Kar-Wai's In The Mood For Love and his cinematic excellence, where you see the beautiful yellow hues and the phenomenal recreation of the step printing technique.

Despite so many underlying themes, the movie really touches upon the belief of Nihilism, Jobu Tupaki believes that nothing matters, and hence she formed the everything bagel where she topped all her victories and failures to prove that it doesn't matter what you achieve or conquer, at the end of the day existence indeed is fruitless.

With action-packed scenes which oddly remind you of a typical Jackie Chan movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a must-watch for everyone. This is probably one of Michelle Yeoh's best works. An equally enthralling comeback of Key Huy Quan. Stephanie Hsu surprises us with her refreshing performance that brings emotions to the screen. Great performance by James Hong, as he sticks to his role as Gong Gong and proves that he's still young at heart as Alpha Gong Gong. Jamie Lee Curtis is amazing as usual and definitely warms your heart towards the end.

Watch the movie as it takes you down a trip that almost seems like you're lucid dreaming but it serves a beautiful message about family and love.

You can rent the movie on Vudu & Amazon Prime

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