EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling

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Photo caption: Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh and James Hong in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Courtesy of A24.

The mind-bender Everything Everywhere All At Once is often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. It’s as if a martial arts version of It’s a Wonderful Life were written by Terry Gilliam on LSD and Red Bull

Michelle Yeoh shines as Evelyn, the burned-out owner of the coin laundromat that she lives above. Evelyn is simultaneously tying to run the business, survive a crippling IRS audit, organize a birthday party for her cranky father and avoid facing her daughter Joy’s (Stephanie Hsu) having a girlfriend. Stressed out to the max, Evelyn is so emotionally neglectful of her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) that she doesn’t grok that he’s trying to divorce her (for emotional neglect).

Suddenly, Evelyn is plunged into a multiverse where a master villain named Jobu Topaki is wreaking carnage and sometimes inhabiting Joy’s body. And, just as suddenly, we are plunged into a mile-a-minute adventure like being inside a pinball machine. Every so often, Waymond is possessed by a multiverse good guy and blurts out a stream of exposition, but it’s best not to try to follow it.

An “everything bagel” appears – both literally and metaphorically. There’s a heartfelt message embedded that is much simpler than all the sci fi hoopla.

It takes a movie star like Yeoh (the martial arts star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Bond Girl in Tomorrow Never Dies, and the steely mom in Crazy Rich Asians).tio hold the center of this wacky extravaganza.

Jamie Lee Curtis in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Courtesy of A24.

The rest of the cast is excellent, too. Ke Huy Quan, who, as a child, played Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom captures Waymond’s gentle cluelessness and domestic frustration. I especially loved 93-year-old James Hong (recognizable from his 450 screen credits) as Evelyn’s dad. The funniest performance is by a hilariously glammed-down Jamie Lee Curtis as the IRS agent.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is co-written and co-directed by the Daniels – Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. The pair is best known for getting $3 million to make the utterly transgressive Swiss Army Man, starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) as a flatulent corpse.

Everything Everywhere All At Once is a succession of zany action and eye candy with an avalanche of googly eyes at the climax. The best bits are:

  • a brilliant martial arts set piece with a fannypack as a weapon.
  • a fantasy of what Evelyn’s life would be if she hadn’t married Waymond, which turns out to be the real movie star life of Michelle Yeoh.
  • the moment in evolutionary history when hot dog fingers overcame real human fingers in natural selection.
  • a live action homage to the movie Ratatouille with a CGI racoon.
Stephanie Hsu in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Courtesy of A24.

One more note: the costume design (Shirley Kurata) and makeup (Michelle Chung) for Joy when she’s possessed by the villain is inspired.

I’ve rarely seen so much imagination thrown up on the screen, mostly for the better. Everything Everywhere All At Once is kinda draining to watch and often frustrating, but its best moments are very, very good.

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