‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Review: A Swiss-Army Movie
Leading into my viewing of Everything Everywhere All at Once, all I really knew about it came from the cringeworthy hyperbolic praise given to it by online viewers, “I laughed, I cried, I lost 15 lbs…etc.” After watching it, the most shocking thing about the movie was that all the quasi-insane praise it received was well deserved. Everything Everywhere All at Once is really, really good. It’s also the type of movie that is difficult to advertise, and thus will live or die by the quality and proliferation of word-of-mouth praise, so hopefully the hyperbole machine keeps going.
The movie is the latest from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (the Daniels), who were previously best known for bizarro sleeper-hit Swiss Army Man. Swiss Army Man is a strange movie with a unique premise that is expertly delivered. I highly recommend watching it, as it’s fascinating to see a survival story about fart and boner jokes turn into a genuinely heartfelt and poignant exploration of loneliness, connection, and the modern human condition. Everything Everywhere All at Once is even better and similarly all over the place, upping the ante from Swiss Army Man by including plenty of action, special effects, and other fun stuff to create an even crazier, roided-out version of the earlier film.
The movie stars Michelle Yeoh as a woman who has the ability to jump between versions of herself from various parallel universes, and must do so in order to defeat a looming inter-dimensional threat that could destroy the entire multiverse, all while trying to do her taxes, plan a Chinese New Year party, and deal with the dysfunction within her family. Two hours of batshit insanity ensues that is hilarious, tragic, and uplifting all at once. The Daniels use the multiverse conceit to throw the kitchen sink of jokes, ideas, and cinematic genres and references at the wall to create a truly kaleidoscopic action-dramedy experience. Michelle Yeoh must solve the problems of her own life by aggregating experiences of alternate selves from all sort of parallel worlds, from one where she knows kung-fu, to one where she lives in a tragic Wong Kar-wai romance, to one where everyone has hot dogs for hands, and many others. The film’s fast pace, zany tone, and high energy may be offputting to some at first, but one can’t helped but be sucked into the roller-coaster ride that follows.
The technical aspects of the movie are all serviceable, but the star is the editing, which gives the movie its energetic quality and ties together numerous disparate threads into a coherent and engaging whole. Some of the special effects are noticeably low-budget and lacking, however due to the film’s tone, any VFX shortcomings somehow add to the film’s charm rather than detract from it. The cast also does a great job, with each actor playing multiple versions of the same character with varying degrees of seriousness, with James Hong, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis all being major highlights.
The Daniels have really outdone themselves here, delivering arguably the best movie of 2022 to this point. Everything Everywhere All at Once lives up to the promise of its title, delivering action, comedy, family drama, and wistful existential musings all into one hilarious, thrilling, and poignant package. It’s a truly rare movie that gives audiences a truly rare experience, and is absolutely worth the cost of admission.
