On her way to the IRS for her laundromat’s audit, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) finds it hard to focus as someone who looks almost exactly like her goofball husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), has alerted her to a fracture in the multiverse and that a great evil is coming to hunt them down.  With little time to explain, Waymond quickly teaches Evelyn how to “jump” so that she can access skills that other Evelyns have in different universes.  With the evil forces closing in, it is up to Evelyn to save the multiverse, her business, her marriage, and her relationship with her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). 

The Daniels, the writer/director team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, reteam with A24 for their latest foray into absurdity, Everything Everywhere All at Once.  The kaleidoscopic adventure runs a weighty 139 minutes and wears its long list of inspirations on its sleeve.  Most notably is how they deliver the concept of the multiverse reminiscent of The Matrix (1999), the kung-fu inspired fight choreography, the one universe that has the look and feel of a Wong Kar Wai film, and giving Quan his first major film role since the mid-1980s as Short Round in Temple of Doom (1984) and Data in The Goonies (1985).  It is not a bad thing to pay homage to formative works and is a practice done time and time again, but here it becomes a bit of an “I Spy” game as the team takes a litany of iconic works and dresses them up in their specific brand of nonsense. 

While the themes at work here are all very heartfelt and true – overcoming generational trauma, finding acceptance in your family, and confronting the fear of a life wasted – the gross humor employed completely dismantles any bit of sincerity that may have been here otherwise.  Edgy and bold for the sake of being edgy and bold, The Daniels constantly fall back on these out of left field visual punchlines and then continually bring back the same joke time and time again beating a one-trick pony well into submission.  What may have garnered a chuckle the first time, say the Tax Accountant Trophy, loses its humor as it gets carted back out each time.  There are big reveals that are specifically crafted to get an “Oh my god, this is so crazy, can you believe it” reaction from audiences, but because they come from such an ingenuine point of conception, it lands like a thud, and the only emotion bubbling up inside of us is embarrassment at what we are seeing. 

The one high point of the film is that the cast does seem to be enjoying themselves and do their best to embrace the wild antics dictated by the script.  Quan is an absolute delight to watch even though many of the concepts he is delivering early on go right over our heads until later in the film when we have a better grasp of how “jumping” works.  Throughout the various different universes in which we see him, he has an entirely different character to portray from the goofy husband, a Morpheus stand-in, and a romantic lead to boot.  Hsu also joins in on the fun with her eccentric and wild wardrobe and mastery over jumping being able to cycle through her styles, abilities, and personalities at a breakneck speed.  Jamie Lee Curtis also shines as Deirdre Beaubeirdra, a distinguished tax accountant in “the real world,” later getting to lean into some of the more fun multiverse personalities and showcasing the actresses’ comedy chops. It is unfortunate, however, that Yeoh, while the heart of the film and a late-arc action star, seems almost the weak link here.  Her performance is solid and does deliver many of the emotional beats of the film, but again, the structure on the page makes her a very stubborn character and her resistance to the narrative finds her in a very passive role throughout much of the film. She is often reacting to events instead of driving the scenes.   

Everything Everywhere All at Once has a lot to be admired, but its biggest stumbling block is right there in the title.  It is trying to give audiences a little bit of everything… everywhere… all at once.  As the saying goes, it is oftentimes better to be a master of one than a master of none.  By branching out in so many directions – a carefully curated and concealed greatest hits of pop culture references and styles – the film is unable to really stand on its own two feet and be something all of its own.  It never has to dig too deep into its themes because the script is overwhelming and because it flashes by we never notice that it is not really saying anything new or profound despite its posturing and air of self-importance.  Rather, the film just takes the scenic route to deliver its simple and oft-concluded message that love is the great unifier across the multiverse.  Sometimes the simplest answers are the key, but it is a shame that at the center of this massive concept that touches on ideas about depression, identity, trauma, failure, and apathy it all gets wrapped up with a family hug and everything moves on with skies full of sunshine and roses.  It takes the easy way out.   

Like their previous work, Swiss Army Man (2016), Everything Everywhere All at Once has a good premise, but the execution goes off the rails in all the wrong ways.  Their brand of humor may work for some, but for others, it is absolutely exhausting to watch them throw everything and anything they can think of on the screen to see what sticks.  This mad libs approach to screenwriting fails in the same way the word game tends to fail, the zany randomness of your gutter-minded friend will ruin the charm and flow of the otherwise lighthearted and enjoyable story.  Placing the team’s work into a Venn diagram, and given Scheinert’s involvement in both Swiss Army Man and his solo directorial outing, The Death of Dick Long (2019), he is the likely culprit for undermining the success of those titles.  While The Daniels’ films tend to flirt with grand themes and philosophy, their retreat into nonsense – much like the finale of Dick Long – dismantles any feelings of goodwill as the plots strip off any sense of nuance and decorum and instead tumble down into gross lunacy.