Movie Review: Everything Everywhere All At Once (R – 139 minutes)

There was a Jet Li movie released in 2001 called The One where a Jet Li from one universe realized he could travel to other universes in the multiverse and kill other Jet Lis.  As he killed each one, he become stronger, seeking to eventually become The One Jet Li, with the most power. During the course of the movie he encountered multiple Carla Guginos as his wife as Delroy Lindo and Jason Statham chased him throughout verses.  It is a fun little action movie and worth a view if you haven’t seen it.

I bring it up because Everything Everywhere All At Once made me think of it. It is similar and  different.  Here, Evelyn Wang is a woman overwhelmed. She is overwhelmed by her husband, her daughter, her aging father, her business, and her taxes. She is pushing the ends of her limits and struggling to keep things together when suddenly a version of her husband from a different verse jumps into her husband and tells her only she can help save the multiverse from an encroaching evil.  

At first completely unwilling and unbelieving, she attempts to shrug off his warning. He eventually teachers her how to use something uncomfortable (with increasing levels of uncomfortableness) to tap into the skills and abilities from an Evelyn somewhere else in the multiverse which she can then use in this verse to combat the henchpeople of the big bad. 

Despite what sounds like a complicated premise, the movie manages to be a simple and beautiful story about the everyday struggles we all face against the constant feeling of daily pressures. Written and directed by Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert), the movie is exquisitely centered by the goddess Michelle Yeoh and I do not know that anyone else is capable of pulling off something this simple and outrageous.  Yeoh can shift from everyday to supernaturally glamorous to insanely weird quickly and expertly. The action sequences are brilliant, the fight scenes are fantastic, the comedic sequences are fun and nonsensical, and the dramatic moments are lovely and touching. 

Ke Huy Quan has mostly been working behind the scenes since his debut in Temple of Doom and Goonies.  He steps back in front of the camera here as various versions of Evelyn’s husband Waymond.  He has to shift from the everyday Waymond hesitantly pushing for divorce to the warrior from another verse looking for help.  Stephanie Hsu plays their daughter Joy and she gets to play even more versions of herself – each more outlandish and entertaining.

James Hong plays various versions of Evelyn’s father, shifting from old and doddering to resistance leader. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Deirdre, the tax lady and she is absolutely wonderful as varying levels of smarmy rule-following. 

 Overall, while the movie is fun and different, it is the cast that truly takes this movie over the top.  We’ve seen some multiverse fun stuff lately – No Where Home was exceptional – but this story manages to make the overwhelming idea of the multiverse a little more personal and really hammer home that it is the connections between all of us that matter the most, even throughout layers and layers of universes.  Also - there's a surprise Harry Shum Jr. appearance that I really cannot even begin to explain because it makes no sense but was really entertaining.

9 out of 10.  Go see it in the theater, get popcorn, not bagels.