Everything Everywhere All at Once – Everything We Ever Wanted
Director: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Writer: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (Screenplay)
Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr
Plot: An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led.
Runtime: 2 Hours 19 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Everything Everywhere All at Once starts when we meet laundrette owner Evelyn Wang (Yeoh) who along with her family, husband Waymond (Quan), daughter Joy (Hsu) and father Gong Gong (Hong) are facing problems with their taxes.
Here Evelyn will get a visitor, one that will offer her a chance to travel through the minds of herself in different universes to stop a new evil coming to hers.
Thoughts on Everything Everywhere All at Once
Characters & Performances – Evelyn Wang has spent her whole adult life in America running a laundrette with her husband, she has built up a friendly relationship with the regulars, while embracing her daughter’s life decisions, despite it being difficult for her to do so. She has however never achieved much else, often finds herself wanting more from her life. This will change, as she gets the chance to connect the minds of different versions of herself in different universes, as she must reluctantly look to save every universe from an evil presence. Waymond is the husband of Evelyn, he seems like a happy-go lucky kind of guy, always wanting to put a smile on people’s faces, never taking anything too seriously. He however changes everything, even himself, with the messages to teach Evelyn how to adapt to the changes she is going through. Joy is the daughter that has become distant over the years, it is this relationship that will drive Evelyn to look to save the universes. Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan (yes, this is Data from the Goonies) are fantastic in the leading roles, they bring everything to this movie, making it reach the top levels it does, easily the best acting of the year to date.
Story – The story here will follow an everyday woman who finds out she could be the only person in every universe that could stop an evil presence from destroying them all, sending her on a wild adventure to make this happen. This might be the hardest part of the movie to describe, as like the title says, everything, everywhere all at once, how can you put that into a description? Deeper down this movie will ask the bigger question in life, one we all have asked before ‘What If?’ This will open the door to the story, as Evelyn gets to see how her life could have gone in a different direction because of a decision she made, which has created more universes out in the world. We do get to see how connected each one is, with some wild encounters along the way. The story might well sound crazy, but at the core, we are left with raw emotions and communication to drive every decision being made.
Themes – Everything Everywhere All at Once is an action, adventure, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi movie that will give us plenty of action fight sequences, each one designed to offer a different environment and tone, which will include some excellently timed comedy for some. The idea of diving into different universes will bring us a sci-fi movie that does make sense, explaining with making things complicated, which is key to everything going on in the movie we see. The settings and costumes are also excellent, with most of the starting world being in one building, while each universe opens up the doors to infinite possibilities.
Final Thoughts – Everything Everywhere All at Once is filled with raw emotions, making you laugh, cry and leaves you with your mind blown.
