Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Synopsis

Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) has a lot on her plate, and it seems at any moment it might all come clattering to the ground. Her slapdash bookkeeping is being audited by the IRS due to the way she confuses expenditures for her many hobbies with receipts for her real dry cleaning business. Husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) is trying to get her attention long enough to present divorce papers. She’s desperately fighting fires in the dry cleaners while trying to keep her Chinese New Year’s party on track for her fussy father. She’s doing a bad job of letting her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) know she accepts her girlfriend.

And that’s just the first few frenetic minutes as Evelyn dashes to juggle it all. Just when she’s got a few quiet seconds on the elevator up to see the IRS auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), Waymond goes bonkers and tells her he’s actually “Alpha Waymond,” her husband from a parallel universe. He’s got only a few minutes to give her instructions she must follow in order to restore order to a multiverse that, like her, or because of her, is spinning out of control.

Got it? Clear enough? Hold on. It only gets faster and crazier from there. And in a good way.

During her journey through her parallel lives, Evelyn re-experiences the sacrifices she made when marrying Waymond, and the alternate, beautiful lives she might have had otherwise. Those hobbies in what feels like her failed real life? Successes in parallel lives: novelist, chef, teacher, singing coach, dancer, and (wink, wink) famous actress and martial artist.

Her mission eventually takes shape as she learns she must face the ultimate villain threatening the entire multiverse: Jobu Tupaki. You can guess who that turns out to be.

The non-stop action is filled to the brim with sometimes gross, sometimes clever sight gags and surprisingly cutting dialog, such as this exchange (with its cautionary note for viewers) that forces Evelyn to confront the regrets of what might have been:

Evelyn: There is no way I am the Evelyn you are looking for.

Alpha Waymond: No, I see it so clearly.

Evelyn: See what? I’m no good at anything.

Alpha Waymond: Exactly. I’ve seen thousands of Evelyns, but never an Evelyn like you. You have so many goals you never finished, dreams you never followed. You’re living your worst you. … Every failure here branched off into a success for another Evelyn in another life. Most people only have a few significant alternate life paths so close to them. But you, here, you’re capable of anything because you’re so bad at everything.

See It

Everything Everywhere All At Once dominated the 2023 Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing. Best Actor for Yeoh and Best Supporting Actor for Quan and Curtis. I didn’t like it as much as some did, but despite a few quibbles (the universe where people had hotdogs for fingers, and the auditory acuity it takes to follow the subtitles for the Chinese as actors switched languages in mid-sentence), I enjoyed it from start to finish.

Though I don’t usually appreciate artistic details like editing, the unrelenting pace and exuberant creativity of the transitions as the action jumped from one timeline and universe to the next was awe-inspiring.

Jamie Lee Curtis gets kudos for her supporting win, heavily influenced I think by her early scenes as the officious IRS auditor. She was weird and wonderful and gets props for being willing to look a tad pudgy in the ill-fitting sweater.

But her co-nominee, Stephanie Hsu, in my eyes gave the standout performance in the final acts. She has you completely engaged as she shares her despair and disappointment, and finally vents her raw anger at the mother who may have tried but failed to understand and support her. Both Yeoh and Hsu are mesmerizing in a final tit-for-tat confrontation, which manages to upend your expectations and yet lets you come away feeling that’s OK.

Michelle Yeoh, famed as the kickass martial arts heroine in so many movies, was perfectly cast against type. Though she gets to kick some ass in her parallel lives, she’s just as believable as the cautious, hesitant “real Evelyn,” who often retreats rather than charging ahead. Yeoh finally gets a chance to show her breadth of talent as she nails the perfect, final expression, that state of profound calm and distraction as the voices around her quiesce and you sense Evelyn is finally at peace with the life she has been given.