I almost didn’t see Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022). I was sitting with my fiancée at lunch when she checked the weather. Noticing it was going to rain, we thought, “Aw, hell. I guess we might as well go see a movie”. Since we’d already seen The Batman (2022) (which went on far too long, I might add) and X (2022), that left us with the only real remaining option - Everything Everywhere All At Once. We walked into the film almost completely blind, only knowing that it starred Michelle Yeoh. I had seen the last thirty seconds of a trailer, once. However, being that Yeoh is one of the most successful representations of Asians in American cinema and fresh from her role on Shang-Chi (2021) and Crazy Rich Asians (2018), I was familiar with her acting. I thought she was solid, so this seemed like something that would serve as a fair way to pass time. Ke Huy Quan stars alongside Yeoh as her husband, though he hadn’t acted professionally since 2002 and was probably most known for playing the character ‘Data’ in The Goonies (1985). With twenty years since his previous film, I’d be lying if I said my expectations for him were anything above “passable”. Stephanie Hsu plays their daughter (in a role originally meant to be played by Awkwafina), and to be honest, I didn’t even know who she was. With the most experienced actress (Yeoh) still fairly unknown to the wider American audience, this cast probably didn’t inspire many to go running to the theater - especially when its marketing and trailer looked to mimic the typical “Marvel formula”.
Regardless of my general exhaustion with the “Marvel formula”, another reason that the film didn’t inspire confidence is due to (what I assumed was) severe underfunding when creating a Marvel competitor - the budget of this film is listed at a miniscule $25 million. For reference, this is the approximate cost of hiring any two actors who starred in Avengers: Endgame. Except Robert Downey Jr. - he’s entirely out of the price range. To compare to the famous Marvel movie once again: Endgame boasted approximately ten studios of VFX help (ILM, Weta Digital, DNEG, Framestore, Cinesite, Digital Domain, Rise, Lola VFX, Cantina Creative, Capital T, Technicolor VFX, and Territory Studio) while Everything Everywhere All At Once boasted five people. In conjunction with this information, directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively referred to as ‘Daniels’) were previously only known for the film Swiss Army Man (2016), some short films, and some music videos for bands like Tenacious D, Passion Pit, Foster the People, and The Shins.
So - this film has a pair of semi-inexperienced directors, a lead actress who is almost 60 years old, supporting characters who haven’t acted in 20 years, and a miniscule budget with a small team. The advertising was fairly cookie-cutter as well. One can understandably identify why I was a bit skeptical as I took my seat in the theater and began to get comfortable for my two-hour and twenty-minute long film. Published by A24, this film could go either way - would it be another Midsommar which was long but engrossing, or Lamb which often felt dreadfully long for reasons which are still unknown to me?
I am ecstatic to report that this film absolutely shattered my doubts. Somehow, the small-but-specialized crew behind Everything Everywhere All At Once proved themselves to be masters of their craft. Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu delivered performances that will leave audiences remembering their faces, their names, and their expertise for years. Passion for filmmaking oozes from the film, and Daniels’ direction bleeds style. Each shot is lovingly crafted and carefully positioned, and they are masterfully combined into what I will proudly say is one of my favorite movies in the past five years at least. Each portion of this movie is phenomenal: the costuming, VFX, special effects, casting, choreography, editing, lighting, sound, score, and more. I simply cannot say enough about the masterclass of filmmaking that is Everything Everywhere All At Once. The film effortlessly proved that comparisons (such as the ones I mentally drew to Endgame) were pointless - there is absolutely no chance you’ve ever seen a film like this before.
This science fiction romantic black comedy action film (yes, it’s really all of those things) stars Yeoh and Quan as a pair of middle-aged first-generation immigrants named Evelyn and Waymond who are struggling to keep their laundromat afloat, and are having problems with their taxes. Their daughter, Joy (Hsu), is struggling to share the truth of her lesbian relationship with her authoritarian, traditionalist grandfather. Evelyn (Yeoh) and Waymond (Quan) are also in the midst of relationship issues, and Waymond is attempting to serve Evelyn divorce papers. Once the family decides to visit the IRS agent helping with their case (Jaime Lee Curtis), things quickly go awry. Thus begins a wonderfully complex but easily-understood tale of the multiverse. Without exposing too much, I will say that this film handled the multiverse better than any other film in recent memory (so maybe the Endgame comparison was relevant after all…) and did so with wonderful amounts of raw, real emotion.
I have never seen a film that made me laugh out loud for hours. I have also never seen a film that made me cry more than once during runtime. Somehow, Everything Everywhere All At Once stayed true to its name, accomplished both of those feats, and made me feel pretty much every emotion in the book all at one time. I laughed consistently in the film, I cried for like fifteen minutes, and at one point, I devolved into some weird half-laugh-half-cry that I’ve never quite appreciated before. This, coupled with simultaneous existential horror, true suspense, and genuine amazement combined into perhaps the most organically human experience of all time. I am decidedly withholding most of the plot from you to encourage you to see this movie with as few spoilers as possible, but trust me, it is not as simple as my former plot description portrays.
Everything Everywhere All At Once successfully joins the leagues of increasingly popular films that star women outside the age of what Hollywood may disgustingly deem as “employable”. It is a not-so-secret fact that women over the age of 40 often get passed over for roles for their younger counterparts - an issue often discussed by Barbara Crampton around her role in Jakob’s Wife (2021). It is clear that for every Kathy Bates, Lin Shaye, Meryl Streep, or Viola Davis, there are many circumstances where “younger equals better”. This double standard does not exist in the same capacity for men, and indeed, Everything Everywhere All At Once almost did slip into this pitfall. Michelle Yeoh’s character was originally designed for Jackie Chan. After seeing this film, I simply cannot imagine anyone other than Yeoh in this role, and she acted her heart out. Michelle Yeoh adds Everything Everywhere All At Once to the list of movies who have trusted these women to lead their film to stardom, similar to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017). Yeoh, just like Frances McDormand, does this while also being a complete and total badass.
It’s films like Everything Everywhere All At Once that make me proud to say, “I love going to the movies”. While I focused heavily on Yeoh in this review, Quan, and Hsu all provided exemplary performances that simply must be seen to be believed. I’d like to give Quan special recognition as well - to return to acting in major motion pictures after a 20 year hiatus in this degree is simultaneously improbable and incredible. In years, I have not watched a film which invoked such strong feelings. I have never viewed any media like Everything Everywhere All At Once before, and it is likely I will never find anything quite like it ever again. I recommend this film to every single person that reads this review. If you watch a single movie from my contributions on this website, please make it this one.
If you’re wondering why this review has a bit less analysis than some of my other reviews, it’s simply because I only wrote this review to rave about the movie. Admittedly, I have less knowledge about some of this than I’d like to admit. I’ll make it up to you soon.
★★★★★
Maximilian Ripley