Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) – D. Kwan & D. Scheinert

Whoa! I heard the buzz (plus who can go past Michelle Yeoh in a starring role?), so I checked this out (of the library). Starting with the quotidian scenario of a small business owner, Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), doing her taxes (for IRS agent Jamie Lee Curtis), but quickly becoming ridiculous (sublimely ridiculous or ridiculously sublime) when her heretofore meek husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan, previously famous in The Goonies & Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) begins channelling an action hero from another universe (one of the many universes created whenever we make a choice). Soon, Evelyn herself learns to “verse jump”, finding versions of herself in parallel universes across the meta-verse that she can draw on for different strengths (including kung fu skills). It seems that she must do battle with another verse-jumping master, Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), in order to save the uni-meta-verse as we know it (or don’t know it). Taking cues or paying homage to The Matrix (with its slo-mo or sped up fight scenes) as well as Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (!!!) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (!!!!), the film soon spins from ridiculous to downright insane. Directorial team Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) don’t hold back and admittedly it might all get a bit much. But at its heart, this is also a family drama about a stressed-out immigrant woman’s relationships with her strict Chinese father (James Wong, now 90+ and in his 8^th decade of film roles), her alienated Americanised daughter (Hsu), and her neglected husband (Quan), not to mention the IRS. Yeoh is amazeballs in the lead role. The film careens from sentimental heart-string pulling (which moved me) to philosophical explorations of the meaning (or lack of meaning) of life to full-strength action, all with a giant dose of absurdity (hot-dog fingers?) and blink-and-you-miss-em jokes and references.  In the end, black bagels are pitted against white googly eyes. You’ll have to watch it to understand. It’s a trip.