EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE

US, 2021, 137 minutes, Colour.

Michelle Yeoh,  Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate Harry Shum Jr.

Directed by Daniels (Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert). All

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Judging by reviews, bloggers, box office, everyone, everywhere, is wanting to watch this film all at once. And, if you decide to see it, you are in for what they usually call a wild ride. Perhaps it might be better to say wild, weird ride.

Before we get to everywhere, there has to be a where. Actually, it is as prosaic as a coin laundry, managed by Evelyn (the ever-versatile Michelle Yeoh) and Waymond (former child star Ke Huy Quan). Evelyn is busy, busy, busy, Waymond worried, thinking of a divorce. They have a visit from their daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), bringing her girlfriend, Becky, exasperated by the hold her mother has over her. And, upstairs, there is Gong Gong, Evelyn’s father (James Hong filming at age 80). So, prospects of a lively domestic drama – compounded when they go off to the IRS building with their tax documentation, encountering a very severe auditor, Jamie Lee Curtis.

But, then the first part of the title comes up on screen, Everything. And, off we go, barely stopping for another two hours of screen time. The two writers and directors, using the common name Daniels, (Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert) came into some prominence with their The Swiss Army Man, but they have made a number of short films and videos. They bring all their talents from these backgrounds, a kaleidoscope of ideas and images and music, non-stop. (So far the film has received one award – for Best Editing, Paul Rogers, heartily endorsed by this reviewer, wondering how it worked in the editing room with hundreds of short pieces to be edited coherently. Coherently might be an overstatement but, as we watch the film, it is pacey, exciting, sometimes breathtaking, and unexpectedly working well.

So, off into the multiverse, relying on our familiarity with strange powers in the universe, gizmos for mind control, exciting special effects, and always the unexpected. At one stage one of the characters remarks in an understatement, not typical of the whole dynamic of the film, “I’m a little lost”. And, this is an Odyssey in the multiverse for Evelyn, showing Michelle’s Yeoh’s multi-versatility, serious, dramatic, some martial arts, music, a bewildered mother facing so many of the possible lives she might have led, trying to work out which life she is in, especially with her husband turning up in all kinds of guises, the quiet man at the laundry, a dapper suit and tie gentleman, touches of the android.

And, who is cast as the villain, but Joy. And, as the film progresses, this is a film about family reconciliation, regrets about the past, Evelyn confronting Gong Gong as an evil power and memories of a harsh father, Joy and emotional rivalry.

After about an hour of this, the second part of the title comes up on screen, Everywhere. That is rather misleading because, in fact, we have already been Everywhere. And, it is more of the same, in the different universes, Evelyn’s sudden changing lives, encountering her family in different guises, conflict, resolution, possibilities.

And, by the way, the tax auditor turns up quite a deal, initially fighting with Evelyn, finally becoming reconciled and friends – and a pleasure to see Jamie Lee Curtis again.

When the third part of the title appears on screen, All at Once, it is almost the end of the film, quietening down a bit, reminding us that whatever our existential imaginations might conjure, whatever our cosmology of the universes, we live here, and have to live our lives in our here and now limitations.

Safe to say you won’t find many more films (any films?) Like this! 

Postscript 2023, winner of 7 Oscars including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, and 3 acting awards.

1. Acclaim and popularity? A cult film instantly on release?
2. The work of the directors, their imagination, continually offbeat, visually and verbally creative?
3. The cast, their backgrounds in film, Michelle Yeoh, actress, martial arts, Stephanie Sue and television, James Hong and his long movie and television career, Ke Huy Quan as child actor? Jamie Lee Curtis and her career? Audience expectation of their screen presence?
4. The title, weird, suggestions of mayhem? Each piece of the title coming up through the film?
5. The visuals, the camera work? The importance of the editing, narrative, coherence, pace? The special effects and the imagination? Musical score?
6. The opening, the coin laundry, ordinary, Evelyn, the matriarch, the tax accounts, everything busy, the cooking, always in a flurry and hurry? Waymond, husband and father, quiet, unassuming? Gong Gong, his age, Evelyn’s memory of him as a father, his demands, meals, speaking Chinese? Joy, arriving, with Beth has her girlfriend, the embarrassment, her mother’s reaction, her grandfather’s reaction? The confrontation with her mother? The background of organising the party for the grandfather? The customer, can be Knows, inviting her to the party…?
7. The visit to the tax office, the demands of the auditor, the documents, want to extend the laundry, Evelyn’s absentmindedness?
8. The transition to Everything, Everywhere? Waymond, the gizmo and the connections? On Evelyn’s neck?
9. The idea of the multipurpose, the visualising of the multipurpose, the range of locations, exotic, ordinary, in space, cinema settings, opera settings…? A phantasmagoria? The audience response to 2 hours of speeding through the multipurpose?
10. Joy and her alter ego, the control of the situation, of her mother? Their appearances together? Joy as herself, as a threat, confrontation, with her father, grandfather, getting Beth’s help?
11. Evelyn, her bewilderment, moving from one world to another, trying to cope with her different selves, the possibilities of lives, memories of her father and antagonism towards him, the different personalities of Waymond in the different universes, meek and submissive, coat and tie and poised and unaccomplished? The appearance of the auditor, her pursuit of Evelyn, dangerous? But, ultimately, the friendship, bonding and reconciliation?
12. Each member of the family and the different appearances and style in the different lives? And the effect on the audience in being bombarded with everything, moving everywhere?
13. The finale, all at once, coming back to Earth?
14. The final understandings, concessions, bonding, Evelyn accepting joy and Beth? The future?
15. In the excitement of imagining a different lives in the multipurpose, but the reality of having to live in the here and now?