What Is It?
The 2022 American absurdist comedy-drama martial arts action science fiction movie, Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Here is how Wikipedia describes this movie:
Everything Everywhere All At Once is a 2022 American absurdist comedy-drama film written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as “Daniels”), who co-produced it with the Russo brothers. It stars Michelle Yeoh as a Chinese-American woman being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, who discovers that she must connect with parallel universe versions of herself to prevent a powerful being from causing the destruction of the multiverse. Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis appear in supporting roles. The film has been described as a “swirl of genre anarchy”[5] and features elements of black comedy, science fiction, fantasy, martial arts film and animation.
Kwan and Scheinert researched the concept of the multiverse as far back as 2010, and began penning the screenplay as early as 2016. Originally written for Jackie Chan, the lead role was later reworked and offered to Yeoh.[6][7] Principal photography began in January 2020 and wrapped in March as the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States. The film’s soundtrack features music composed by Son Lux, including collaborations with musicians Mitski, David Byrne, and André 3000.
Everything Everywhere All At Once premiered at South by Southwest on March 11, 2022, and began a limited theatrical release in the United States on March 25, before a wide release by A24 on April 8. The film received widespread critical acclaim; reviews praised its imagination, direction, Yeoh’s performance, and handling of themes such as existentialism, nihilism, and Asian-American identity. It has grossed over $89 million worldwide, surpassing Hereditary (2018) as A24’s highest-grossing film of all time.
My Thoughts
This is the most mind-bending, unique, crazy, creative, goofy, et cetera movie that I have seen this year so far.
I was surprised by how much Mandarin and / or Cantonese was used in this movie along with English, it was cool how they jumped between the languages at times.
This is one of those movies that you have to see for yourself, it is difficult to describe, and it is not for everyone.
This movie felt like someone combined some of their dreams, daydreams, thoughts, emotions, ideas, stories, et cetera from throughout their lives into one movie.
There are good ideas mixed with bad ideas in this movie, it is way too long, I did not like some of the comedy & sex gags, and so it makes it more difficult to recommend to some people.
My brother GC and I agree that this movie would be much better with an edit to cut out the bad ideas, time-wasting, sex gags (to make it more family friendly & less goofy), et cetera.
With a new cut / edit of this movie, I could recommend it to everyone, until then this is a movie that I can recommend to some people with a warning about some of its flaws.
This is a pretty good movie at its core, the core of it is emotional, and a family drama wrapped in a bunch of wacky & crazy things; I was impressed by the family element of this movie.
I would rate this movie a 3.5 – 4 out of 5 that almost made me tear up, and is a movie that I wish that I could recommend to everyone.
If you can handle it and get past the flaws, this is a movie that you should watch, just for the fact of how different it is; and how there is a surprising number of emotional & philosophical messages hidden in this movie about: life, death, family, marriage, mother and daughter relationships, the multiverse, and more.
The end,
- John Jr
John Jr's Blog 