EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
***
Directors: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Screenwriters: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Principal cast:
Michelle Yeoh
Stephanie Hsu
Ke Huy Quan
Jamie Lee Curtis
James Hong
Jenny Slate
Country: USA
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 139 mins.
Australian release date: 14 April 2022.
Everything Everywhere All at Once, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as ‘Daniels’), is a totally off-the-wall black comedy, a sci-fi/martial arts/action-adventure mash-up that defies ready description. Moving at a frenetic pace, its editor, Paul Rogers, won the Editing Award at the SXSW Film Festival and you can see why; do not attempt to count the cuts per minute! Its choppy style replicates the chaos of the Daniels’ crazy, multiverse-hopping screenplay. If you happen to have seen the Daniels’ previous feature, 2016’s Swiss Army Man, which starred Daniel Ratcliffe as a flatulent corpse, you’ll have some idea of just how surreal a Daniels script can be. Everything Everywhere All at Once is even more bizarre.
Poor Evelyn Wang (the fantastic Michelle Yeoh). She’s a harried Chinese-American whose world is crashing around her: the laundromat she runs with her happy-go-lucky husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service and she appears to have mucked up her tax return; Waymond is filing for divorce, although she doesn’t know it yet; her teenage daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is coming out as a lesbian and wants her girlfriend to be treated as part of the family; and her irascible father (James Hong) has arrived from China to celebrate his birthday with a big party at the laundromat. As the family is being interviewed at the IRS office by the intimidating tax agent Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis in a fat suit and a basin-cut grey wig), Waymond suddenly enters Evelyn’s head and reveals to her that the universe is, in fact, a multiverse in which many parallel worlds exist. Not only that, it is under threat from a figure called Jobu Tupaki and only Evelyn has the ability to defeat her. He tells her about ‘verse-jumping’, which enables people to access all their varied selves, thus giving her the means to examine her parallel lives where she learns that she’s a film star, a chef, a martial arts expert and many other things in a multitude of ‘verses’. And that’s all in the first 10 minutes!
Everything Everywhere All at Once has its heart in the right place although the message conveyed at its conclusion is hardly Earth shattering, given the mayhem that has preceded it. Still, the ride to get there is totally unpredictable and often very amusing, even if not all the gags work. Sometimes, too much is simply overkill and can become a bit too undergraduate (dildos as weapons, butt plugs needed to ‘verse-jump’, Frankfurts for fingers)? Yeoh brings all her formidable range of talents to bear as Evelyn, having trained as a dancer and starred in many martial arts action movies over the years. She also shows a real gift for comedic timing. Her co-stars, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis and James Hong all play multiple characters, as Yeoh does, and it looks like they all had a fun time making the movie. What better way to show off your acting chops than to play many disparate roles in the one film? Curtis, in particular, seems to be relishing her part as Deirdre; she’s almost unrecognisable. The largely electronic soundtrack, composed by the U.S. band Son Lux and featuring contributions from veteran musicians like David Byrne and Randy Newman plus more current artists like Mitski, Moses Sumney and André 3000, adds a lot to the action.
Kwan and Scheinert are two of the most interesting young writer/directors around and where they go from here is anyone’s guess - they just need an experienced producer to rein in some of their excesses to reach their full potential. At two hours and 20 minutes, their film overstays its welcome. Everything Everywhere All at Once has a lot going for it but I suspect, with its videogame aesthetic, that it’s gamers who will get the most out of this chaotic movie.
Screenwriters: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Principal cast:
Michelle Yeoh
Stephanie Hsu
Ke Huy Quan
Jamie Lee Curtis
James Hong
Jenny Slate
Country: USA
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 139 mins.
Australian release date: 14 April 2022.
Everything Everywhere All at Once, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as ‘Daniels’), is a totally off-the-wall black comedy, a sci-fi/martial arts/action-adventure mash-up that defies ready description. Moving at a frenetic pace, its editor, Paul Rogers, won the Editing Award at the SXSW Film Festival and you can see why; do not attempt to count the cuts per minute! Its choppy style replicates the chaos of the Daniels’ crazy, multiverse-hopping screenplay. If you happen to have seen the Daniels’ previous feature, 2016’s Swiss Army Man, which starred Daniel Ratcliffe as a flatulent corpse, you’ll have some idea of just how surreal a Daniels script can be. Everything Everywhere All at Once is even more bizarre.
Poor Evelyn Wang (the fantastic Michelle Yeoh). She’s a harried Chinese-American whose world is crashing around her: the laundromat she runs with her happy-go-lucky husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service and she appears to have mucked up her tax return; Waymond is filing for divorce, although she doesn’t know it yet; her teenage daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is coming out as a lesbian and wants her girlfriend to be treated as part of the family; and her irascible father (James Hong) has arrived from China to celebrate his birthday with a big party at the laundromat. As the family is being interviewed at the IRS office by the intimidating tax agent Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis in a fat suit and a basin-cut grey wig), Waymond suddenly enters Evelyn’s head and reveals to her that the universe is, in fact, a multiverse in which many parallel worlds exist. Not only that, it is under threat from a figure called Jobu Tupaki and only Evelyn has the ability to defeat her. He tells her about ‘verse-jumping’, which enables people to access all their varied selves, thus giving her the means to examine her parallel lives where she learns that she’s a film star, a chef, a martial arts expert and many other things in a multitude of ‘verses’. And that’s all in the first 10 minutes!
Everything Everywhere All at Once has its heart in the right place although the message conveyed at its conclusion is hardly Earth shattering, given the mayhem that has preceded it. Still, the ride to get there is totally unpredictable and often very amusing, even if not all the gags work. Sometimes, too much is simply overkill and can become a bit too undergraduate (dildos as weapons, butt plugs needed to ‘verse-jump’, Frankfurts for fingers)? Yeoh brings all her formidable range of talents to bear as Evelyn, having trained as a dancer and starred in many martial arts action movies over the years. She also shows a real gift for comedic timing. Her co-stars, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis and James Hong all play multiple characters, as Yeoh does, and it looks like they all had a fun time making the movie. What better way to show off your acting chops than to play many disparate roles in the one film? Curtis, in particular, seems to be relishing her part as Deirdre; she’s almost unrecognisable. The largely electronic soundtrack, composed by the U.S. band Son Lux and featuring contributions from veteran musicians like David Byrne and Randy Newman plus more current artists like Mitski, Moses Sumney and André 3000, adds a lot to the action.
Kwan and Scheinert are two of the most interesting young writer/directors around and where they go from here is anyone’s guess - they just need an experienced producer to rein in some of their excesses to reach their full potential. At two hours and 20 minutes, their film overstays its welcome. Everything Everywhere All at Once has a lot going for it but I suspect, with its videogame aesthetic, that it’s gamers who will get the most out of this chaotic movie.