By Lance Fule
Everything Everywhere All at Once is the latest film created by directing duo Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan. It’s a multiverse film following Evelyn Wang, a woman who’s unhappy with her job, marriage, and overall position in life. That is, until her husband, Waymond Wang, starts acting strangely. It turns out, this is different version of him from another multiverse: the Alphaverse. His mission is to protect the multiverse from ultimate destruction. The threat: Jobu Tupaki. A multiverse hopping nihilist who leaves destruction in her path, for seemingly no reason. Waymond’s universe’s goal is to stop her at all costs, and this particular version of Evelyn is chosen to play a part. She eventually is convinced to help, until she has a horrifying realization: Jobu Tupaki is her daughter.
I’m not a person who often watches movies multiple times over, but this is the exception to that rule. I have watched this movie five times, and cried over it five times. This film has the perfect blend of comedy, drama, action and eventually delves into topics such as suicide, nihilism and existentialism.
To start, the Daniels’ history of chaotic yet somehow coherent writing and directing have seemingly been perfected for this movie. Their filmography consists of films like “Interesting Ball” and “Swiss Army Man,” and in both films you can already see parts of EEAAO in these movies. The Daniels have always been interested in the multiverse, and they utilized their experience and skills (alongside some unadulterated lunacy) to craft the perfection that is Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Everything Everywhere All at Once’s first half is already a creative, chaotic action packed film with a lot to say. Once Evelyn begins to dimension hop, she gains the ability to take the skills of any Evelyn, in any multiverse – Effectively giving herself the ability to gain any power at any time. The Daniels use this concept to show off their weird, yet charming creative prowess, giving Evelyn skills from a Hibachi Chef to throw eggs at her adversaries, a sign spinning Evelyn to fight using a riot shield, and even skills from a singer Evelyn to increase her lung capacity. Every ounce of creativity that this concept has, the Daniels took and ran with.
Alongside incredibly fun and unique action sequences, the original soundtrack that accompanies these scenes make them even more memorable and satisfying to watch.
An action movie without meaning means… nothing. What’s the point of all this fighting? Mentioned earlier, the Alphaverse’s mission is to effectively kill Evelyn’s daughter in every multiverse to stop her from destroying it. Eventually this movie delves into topics like nihilism, existentialism, and kindness. It is somehow able to straddle the line between being preachy and on the nose, and saying nothing at all. It’s able to send clear, positive messages to the audience while advancing the plot, while not preaching to the audience – A feat that few pieces of media have ever achieved.
This is easily a 10/10 movie. With beautiful visuals, overflowing creativity, and a plot good enough to make a grown man cry publicly five times, Everything Everywhere All at once is the movie that I believe everyone, everywhere, all over the world should see if they want to.
Image from Amazon.com
