“Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Worth every minute. Across every universe.
Worth every minute. Across every universe.
On Sunday 12th March, and in a very different universe from the one us mere mortals inhabit, Everything Everywhere All At Once was sweeping the Oscars board with seven wins from an incredible eleven nominations. “The Daniels” of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert bagged a hat-trick of arguably the most prestigious awards the Hollywood night had to offer whilst also rejoicing in the acclaim afforded the eclectic stars both in front of and behind their cameras.
Supporting The Daniels version of a universe and a multiverse of limitless lives of limitless possibilities, and of an “Alphaverse” seeking “The One” of The Wachowski’s Matrix, saw Jamie Lee Curtis, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan all triumph alongside their directors and Paul Rogers who bagged the Oscar for best editing, for a total of seven of the very best. When you’ve seen this astonishingly brilliant yet still faintly ridiculous universe hopping extravaganza amid bullet time fights with dildoes and butt plugs, you’ll see why Paul Rogers was fully deserved of his golden statuette for best editing, and if dildoes and butt plugs caught your attention, wait until you see the googly eyed rocks or the raccoon who is an expert cook or indeed the universe of elongated sausage fingers wrapped in a love story, a coming of age story and of the lives of frustrated unfulfillment and “living your worst life” when there are endless possibilities within The Matrix.
“Small and stupid” we may be, but there is a resounding echo here across all time and throughout all universes, a universal belief in love and kindness, and being kind to the human family throughout generations and traditions, of forgiveness and tolerance, authenticity and inner peace.
Have I mentioned the googly eyes yet?
There’s a lot going on here, and all at once if you will, and I’ve yet to mention the direct and hilarious nod to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Pixar animated film Ratatouille or even the allusions to Fight Club in a Matrix of The Wachowski’s prior creation. But yet the stronger pull to their films is perhaps the parallel to their under appreciated Cloud Atlas from 2012. For lives across centuries and decades of time, here you have those limitless lives across universes and never is this more brilliantly showcased than within the performance of Stephanie Hsu. Although “beaten” by her film mate Jamie Lee Curtis for the ultimate award of an Oscar, Hsu is quite outstanding whether as a coming of age daughter to estranged parents or an avenging angel hurling flying dildoes or in the white of an Elvis pantsuit or the virginal white and black bagel (yes a bagel!) of yet another universe in yet another time.
I saw a lot of Cloud Atlas in this film, which probably accounts for my instant love of a film that simply has to be watched and demands your attention the first time you watch it and no doubt will do so again even on multiple re-watches. But there is a lot going on here, everything everywhere, and far more than the nods to The Matrix or Cloud Atlas that pleased me, or the multitude of themes that pervade every universe that I failed to fully intellectually understand.
The universal themes I did understand bleed through every character but for the purposes of brevity I’ll briefly shoot these through the prism of “Evelyn Wang” and her husband “Waymond Wang” and the Oscar winning performances of Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. In the day-to-day universe they are an estranged married couple on the brink of a divorce with Waymond the quietly playful of the two and happy enough with the lot of his life and the life he’s living amongst the crazed manic energy of running a successful business from home and being on the periphery of a life that is utterly breaking the spirit of his overwhelmed wife. Terse conversations abound in subtitled Mandarin or Cantonese as the unfulfillment of a life two thirds over frustrates Evelyn to a boiling distraction in her care for her elderly father, as a similarly angry relationship distances her further and further away from her daughter.
With the universal themes of relationships and generational ties to tradition and respect, you have the existential angst of a life unfulfilled established alongside sexuality, coming out and coming of age, set against the simple comfort of being happy with your place in life before, with the constant dizzying twist of the limitless universes available to them, The Daniels also paint the baggage of regret absolutely brilliantly, as they do the power of dreams and the soul destroying vacuum that is being let down or the bemusement at being so preoccupied with such emotions we forget we’re but mere stardust in a universal galaxy we couldn’t possibly fully comprehend and, well, we could just be a rock on a hillside overlooking a desert.
With googly eyes, naturally.
“I’ve seen you die a thousand ways in a thousand worlds. In every single one, you were murdered”.
From the power of dreams to the power of love and an overriding theme of simply being loving and kind, prepare yourself for the most absurd and surreal cinematic ride that you won’t be able to take your googly eyes away from.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
“65” (2023)
Superlative familial tale. With added dinosaurs.medium.com
“Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre” (2023)
Spy thriller. Without the thrills.medium.com
“Mother!” (2017)
Darren Aronofsky and a descent into hell.medium.com
I found this film to be unbearably dull. My wife loved it, though. She obviously has better taste than me since mine is apparently a minority opinion!😂