At its core Everything Everywhere All At Once is a sweet movie — a kind movie — and of course an insane movie. The insanity is why I loved it.
It seems everyone these days is doing movies about the multiverse, where every choice leads into its own universe. What would have happened if you took that other job or didn’t get that divorce? Somewhere there’s a universe where you made the opposite choices and everything played out differently.
Here, all of the multiverse is under threat, and somehow Evelyn Wang — played brilliantly by Michelle Yeoh — is at the center of it all. Everything, everywhere, all at once, somehow depends on Evelyn stopping her daughter Joy from building a bagel. Googley eyes also play a key role.
Not everyone will love the nuttiness of this film as much as I did. I can see someone throwing up their arms and saying, “This is just insane.” My response would be, “Yeah, I know. Isn’t it great?”
Yeoh is always wonderful, and here she is absolutely believable in an unbelievable role. Three of her colleagues are nominated for Oscars in supporting roles — Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis — and if it were up to me I’d declare a tie and give the two awards to the three of them. After last week’s Screen Actors Guild awards, Yeoh and the film itself are the front runners for Best Actress and Best Picture, and while admittedly I haven’t seen any of the other films and performances, I certainly would agree they would be worthy choices.
But you could tell everyone wasn’t thinking about winning awards when they made this picture; they were just having fun. And that is why you really have to see this film when you can. It’s just fun, and we need more of that these days.