Movie Review: Everything, Everywhere all at Once

Yes, I know. I really should have reviewed this movie months ago, or at least before it won the academy award for best picture. To be honest I just didn’t get around to seeing ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ until after it won the Oscar. I just hope you can forgive my tardiness and that you’ll still find my review to be of some interest.

Even the best of us can get a bit behind sometimes. (Credit: Redbubble)

First off the film isn’t quite ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ but for a motion picture it certainly does pack an awful lot of action, in a great many different location, into two and a half hours. The idea behind ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ is that an opening in the Multiverse allows the characters to experience something of the lives of their alternate selves in other realities. I recently reviewed a novel by Blake Crouch entitled ‘Dark Matter’, see my post of 18th February 2023, that deals with the same idea and like the novel ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ is a breathtaking thrill ride full of wild ideas that will make you think.

The novel ‘Dark Matter’ by Blake Crouch deals with the same ideas as ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ using the Multiverse to question how our lives could have been different if we’d made different choices. (Credit: Goodreads)

Evelyn Wang, played by actress Michelle Yeoh, leads a rather boring existence. She and her husband Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan, own, manage and live above a laundromat. The couple’s only child is a daughter Joy, played by Stephanie Hsu who has recently begun a lesbian relationship and who feels she simply cannot communicate anymore with her parents.

It is of course impossible to fully display the Multiverse in a motion picture, but ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ does a pretty good job of giving a small glimpse of it! (Credit: IMDb)

The Wang’s also live with Evelyn’s father Gong Gong, played by actor James Hong, who thinks his daughter ruined her life when she married Waymond. Oh, and by the way Waymond is planning to divorce Evelyn. To add to the troubles the Wang’s are being audited by the IRS, specifically by IRS agent Deirdre Beabeirdra, played by Jamie Lee Curtis.

In addition to winning the Best Picture Academy Award ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ received three best actor awards. From left to right Michelle Yeoh won for best actress, Key Huy Quan won for best supporting actor while Jamie Lee Curtis won for best supporting actress. (Credit: CBR)

It’s midway through the Wang’s audit that the Multiverse breaks in, as Waymond suddenly becomes an agent fighting the ultimate evil, the daughter Joy, in another Universe that only Evelyn can defeat. When Evelyn asks how she could possibly defeat anyone the other Waymond tells her that she is actually the least accomplished of all the Evelyns in the Multiverse and that allows her to assume the abilities of all the others. At this point don’t ask, just go with the flow as ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ becomes part Science Fiction, part Comedy and Part Action Movie.

Actress Michelle Yeoh has spent much of her career playing in such Kung Fu pictures as ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’. Her abilities as a martial artist were put to good use in ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’. (Credit: DGA)

Throughout ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ there are numerous references to other well known movies like ‘The Matrix’, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and ‘The Terminator’. The big reference however is that in another Universe instead of marrying Waymond Evelyn became a star in Kung-Fu movies, which of course is exactly what actress Michelle Yeoh actually has been throughout her career.

Movies making references to other classic movies has become a thing nowadays. ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once ‘even reminds us of the origins of man section of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. (Credit: Peatix)

The action and dialogue in ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ is frantic and I think this is one movie I’m going to have to watch several times to really figure out everything that’s going on. To add to the confusion the Wang’s go back and forth between speaking English and Mandarin, sometimes in the same sentence. There are subtitles for the Mandarin but with all of the rapid fire dialogue you have to concentrate a bit to keep up. If at any time it all becomes a bit bewildering that’s O’k, this is the Multiverse and anyone who doesn’t find the Multiverse to be bewildering just isn’t paying attention.

The Multiverse will do that to a person. (Credit: Robotics and Automation Review)

In the end everything works out for the best, Evelyn reconciles with her husband, daughter and father, in fact the final scenes are a bit maudlin. Nevertheless ‘Everything, Everywhere all at Once’ is an intellectual roller coaster ride of ideas and action that is just a lot of fun to watch.

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