Is Everything Everywhere All at Once A24's MAGNUM OPUS ?

This absurdist-artsy film set in a multiverse of madness was directed by the Swiss Army Man, Interesting Ball directorial duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. The film sports a star-studded cast of Crazy Rich Asians’ Michelle Yeoh, Indiana Jones’ Ke Huy Quan, Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis, and Shang Chi actress Stephanie Hsu. Despite having only a budget of $15-20 Million dollars, the movie managed to make over $106 Million in box-office sales, HERE’S WHY :

First things first, the poster art for this film is INSANE.

It encapsulates the movie’s entirety in one picture and it’s immaculate. A24 just cannot lose with their posters and art direction. This movie is a true testament to the fact that absurdism is common grounds for A24 and they aren’t playing in it for one. This is one of the very few instances where a multiverse film was watchable(sorry).

Evelyn - the emotionally unavailable mother, Waymond - the quirky ahh (excuse my jargon) father are first-generation immigrants, and Joy - the unaccepted, depressed sapphic daughter are a family of three who hardly make enough to make ends meet. They run a laundromat store at their house and keep to themselves. Their lives turn around when multiverse Waymond gives Evelyn a device that can swap her with her multiverse double (a consequence of every different life choice she has ever made in her life) to stop their daughter’s multiverse double, Jobu from destroying the multiverse.

The film starts with a cold open where the protagonists are shown in a different light (literally) than their actual lives, which is pretty miserable in the least. They are happy and carefree or that’s what’s made to believe until it transitions to the next shot which throws light on their (surprise, surprise) DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY. The mirror foreshadows self-reflection (clever, huh) which happens toward the end of the movie.

It is shocking to watch how Evelyn berates her daughter’s girlfriend in front of her, lies to her father about her daughter’s sexuality and to top it all off, stops Joy right when she was leaving with Becky (her gf), pauses for a minute, looks her dead in the eyes and says, and I quote :

“You- You have to try and eat healthier. You are getting fat.”

Although I immediately burst into laughter, I instantly regretted it when I saw Joy crying the whole ride(ironic, I know). Maybe Joy was right in trying to destroy the multiverse, idk. While Joy is a sobbing mess, their parents are being inspected by the I.R.S. for not filing tax returns properly and that is when Evelyn meets Waymond’s multiverse double which then leads to her swapping with a clique of herself.

The I.R.S. agent is an old annoying woman, Deirdre, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who is the comedic relief of the film. The comedic timing and puns were on point and I was on the floor when Jamie pulled out an award resembling a butt plug and said something along the lines of “I’ve been dealing with this I.R.S. bullshit long enough to get it”.

Evelyn is warned by Alpha Waymond(Waymond from Alphaverse) that Jobu could potentially cause the end of the multiverse and Evelyn takes the matter into her own hands and tries to stop Jobu.

Jobu is forced to verse-jump after being chased down by Evelyn too much to the point that she feels ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’. She collects every little detail down to the faintest memories of her life from every verse and stores them in a bagel-shaped black hole, which could potentially destroy the multiverse.

Deirdre asks the cops to let Evelyn go after she sees her being served with divorce papers by Waymond. She empathizes with Evelyn and tells Eve her divorce story and about how she ran his then-husband’s car through the neighbour’s house.

There was one particular scene when Waymond and Evelyn were at the height of their miscommunication which made me super emotional and made me feel for Waymond and Evelyn. The line delivery was something so serious and their acting was dare I say…out of the world?!

SOMETHING SHIFTED IN THE UNIVERSE. IT WAS NEVER THE SAME.

Another scene that I also loved was the Evelyn, Joy rock scene where they are just two rocks in a multiverse with googly eyes (Waymond used to stick googly eyes on stuff all the time just for fun) for vision and no one else to watch. Just them in an empty world. The shot was done beautifully and the line exchange was amazing even though it was not spoken. Just a casual exchange, rock to rock.

“Joy. I’m sorry about ruining everything-”

“Shh…You don’t have to worry about that here. Just be a rock."

After realizing her mistakes, Evelyn hugs Waymond and it’s one for the books. Waymond asks Evelyn not to fight Jobu and her men but instead use kindness to deal with them. Evelyn sticks a googly eye on her temple and starts tackling Jobu’s men with kindness and tries to persuade Jobu not to enter the black hole. After a lot of memory-clashing and verse-jumping Evelyn manages to pull Jobu out of the bagel and they all make up.

At the end of the film, they all sit around the table and file taxes which is reminiscent of the line “In another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you” which took me into the second emotional rollercoaster of the night.

My biggest regret is never making time to go watch this movie in a theatre. Though the film was only screened for a few weeks and in a handful of theatres, I should’ve made time to watch it on the big screen because it’s such a theatre-view film.

Something which irked me was the fact that I felt like I didn’t understand many elements of the film. Like when Deirdre and Evelyn had hotdogs for fingers, a man tried to sit on a butt plug to switch universes (yeah, that happened), and when they repeatedly showed two people dancing on TV(which could’ve signified happiness). Maybe it was not meant to be meaningful after all(so much for being absurdist).

It also felt like there was too much content and too many universes being spewed upon me in such a short amount of time, which made me not understand the latter part of the film. Though I found it too much at times, maybe those were the ones which added a lot of significance to the film.

The CGI scenes were mind-blowing and captivating. So less but so effective. The shot transitions, special effects and editing were also CRAZY good!

This movie would feel incomplete without all the stunning costumes worn by the characters, their styling(loved the bagel hairstyle on Jobu), and the buzzing background score. It was all done with careful emphasis to detail down to the T.

In conclusion, the film beautifully unravels the layers of a dysfunctional family in three parts :

1. Everything

2. Everywhere

3. All at Once

The film is a must-watch and definitely, the best one A24 has released yet.

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