Everything Everywhere All At Once - A Perfect Film?
One of the year's best films arrives on Amazon Prime Video...
Exploding seemingly out of nowhere at the beginning of this year, Everything Everywhere All At Once quickly established itself as one of this summer’s must-see films. Following a series of rapturously received preview screenings and an American release far in advance of its UK premiere, the overwhelmingly positive word-of-mouth had me champing at the bit to see this film when it finally arrived in British cinemas.
In spite of this, Daniels Kwan and Scheinert somehow managed to exceed my wildest hopes for the film and I have no hesitation in saying that their cosmic action/adventure/comedy/family drama (amongst many other genres) is undoubtedly one of the best films of the year. Over the course of its two-hour-plus runtime, I laughed, cried, and sat in silently stunned amazement, dazzled by the style, ambition, and raw emotional heft of the work.
Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan (making a power-house return to acting) star as Evelyn and Waymond, a Chinese-American immigrant couple whose failing laundrette business mirrors the growing cracks in their marriage. Evelyn’s relationship with their disillusioned daughter, Joy, is similarly strained thanks to her refusal to acknowledge her queerness in the presence of Gong Gong, Evelyn’s conservative father. There’s enough meaty human drama to power a feature film in this set-up alone (indeed, it’s not hard to imagine a version of EEAAO which follows the more low-key route of other A24 films such as 20th Century Women) yet the Daniels soon turn things on their head by introducing a fugitive version of Waymond from an alternate dimension, and with him, the revelation that an infinite number of parallel realities exist.
It’s a sci-fi twist that the film resists for an impressively long time, giving the audience time to become fully invested in the characters and their predicament before turning up the craziness dial. But once this cosmic genie is out of the bottle, the possibilities it affords are utilised to their fullest extent: cue the appearance of every version of Evelyn imaginable, including an animated alien, an inanimate rock (!), and - in a meta twist - Hollywood star of Crazy Rich Asians. It’s not all absurdist fun, however, as “Alpha Universe” Waymond explains to Evelyn that she is being hunted down across realities by a nihilistic variant of her own daughter (“Jobu Tupaki”) seemingly hell-bent on destroying every universe using a black hole-like “Everything Bagel”. Before long, Evelyn finds herself targeted by a host of bad’uns - including Jamie Lee Curtis’s yellow-sweatered Dierdre - leading to a series of brilliantly choreographed action sequences in which Evelyn utilises verse-jumping technologies to instantly learn new fighting skills with astonishing and hilarious consequences.
Michelle Yeoh is perfect in the leading role, fully convincing as every iteration of Evelyn. Whether she is revelling in her new-found kung fu abilities or trying to pass off karaoke microphones as tax-deductible purchases for her laundrette, Yeoh’s performance is constantly real and affecting. Kudos too should go to Stephanie Hsu who plays Joy/Jobu Tupaki. In Hsu’s hands, Tupaki is both terrifying and sympathetic, vengeful and tragic, and it’s in the relationship between mother and daughter that the film finds its heart. Indeed, it’s this rare combination of heartfelt character beats and comedic brilliance alongside spectacular visuals and breathtaking action that makes this film truly special. Many have speculated that EEAAO will be nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards, and, as far as I am concerned, it deserves all the plaudits going. What a film.