What are we to make of the wild, wacky and infectiously weird Everything Everywhere All at Once? Written by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the writers of Swiss Army Man and creative partners since their days in the music video business, this science fiction comedy about a woman not paying her taxes is so outrageous the only choice is to submit to its kooky charms.
Michelle Yeoh gets swept away by its surrealist rhythms, performing an elaborate karate ritual before hitting, twisting, gouging and humiliating an entire S.W.A.T unit with her pinkie. Is this movie an action flick? Nope. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have action or a subplot involving a bagel that has the power to transport us to another world. One of the things you need to know about Everything Everywhere All at Once is that it is, indeed, everything everywhere all at once.
Everything from love to loss to action to romance to violence flashes on the screen, which is to say nothing of the Kafka-esque attacks on society and the Kaufman-esque attacks on reality that make this movie so much more than just a collection of fights and jazz hands. This is a sledgehammer with a heart, a funeral with a parade, an everything bagel with literally everything on it. There is no limit to what The Daniels can put on screen…
In the movie’s opening scene, Evelyn (Yeoh) is balancing piles of paperwork in the apartment she shares with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) ahead of their visit from the tax lady (Jamie Lee Curtis), who needs receipts from their downstairs laundromat. There, she has to deal with her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and her father, Gong (James Hong), who is not okay with Joy having a girlfriend. Even worse: divorce papers have just landed on her desk.
Just when you think things can’t get any more hectic, in comes a Waymond from another universe, telling her that there are millions of Evelyns and that she is the Chosen One. She will have to defeat a villain named Dierde, cross multiple timelines, learn karate, fight hundreds of officers, turn heads into confetti and navigate a reality where she has hot dogs for fingers. And that’s just the start of it…When she finds out that Dierde is really her daughter, upset with her mother’s parenting, the film morphs into a jaw-dropping metaphor for learning to accept people for who they are and finding the good in life…even if that life is filled with people with hot dog fingers.
The cinematic style of Everything seems to be “kung-fu-on-LSD”: The colors are overblown and everything’s edited like crazy. But the effects are mind-blowing and the look works for the setting and theme, reflecting the universe of emotions and personalities that Evelyn has to juggle. The film is the visual equivalent of a cross-cutting, cut-to-the-beat music video one might find on a channel like MTV. And I mean that as a compliment.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is an ambitious and unabashed celebration of everything life throws at us: family, friends, laughs, deaths, taxes, breakups. But it’s really about how we respond to those things, about how we make the most of our time on this planet. To say that a movie could contain it all might sound unrealistic, but this is an unrealistic movie. And it’s one of the best to come out in a long time.
The Dove Take
In terms of craft and message, this is one of the best films to come along in years. But there’s just too much violence and sexual content for me to recommend this.
