Written, Produced and Directed by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
**** (four stars)
RATED R
Now, THAT'S a multiverse!!!!
For much of the duration of Savage Cinema, I have lamented the increasing presence of sequels, prequels, remakes, franchises and re-imaginings at the full expense of essentially any other movies that could be made...and most importantly, the kinds of films that truly stand out as the type of one-pf-a-kind experience that signals the arrival of a fresh filmmaking voice who ultimately deliered an experience unlike anything we have seen before.
These days, if a filmmaker is not of the name recognition level as Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright or most recently, Jordan Peele--actual filmmakers who can open a film based solely upon their own names--the likelihood of their films even receiving a theatrical release are increasingly unstable. Face it, we are living in a time when Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee need to go to streaming services to finance new works and Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story" (2021), his best film in nearly 15 years, bombs at the box office, what chance do newer voices even have in this landscape to even try get their cinematic voices heard?
With the arrival and now, the huge success of "Everything Everywhere All At Once," written, produced and directed by the duo who have adorned themselves solely as Daniels, perhaps we are receiving a grand message from audiences that we are indeed craving material that is unquestionably original, unfamiliar, and completely surprising. What the Daniels have delivered enormously redefines "audacious," as their film will whip your head around and back again, vigorously and gleefully assault your senses and by film's end, break your heart and piece everything back together again, leaving you with a view of the world and existence itself altered and maybe even anew.
This is precisely what the very BEST movies have the power to do when they are working so vibrantly, brilliantly, inventively, emphatically, dynamically and beautifully. Daniels' "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is swing-for-the-fences-and-hit-a-grand-slam cinema. It is not only the best film of 2022 so far (and honestly, I am unable to think of what else could come along to top it) but it is also one of the very best films of this decade.
Daniels' "Everything Everywhere At Once" stars an outstanding Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Wang, a Chinese-American proprietor of a struggling laundromat, she co-owns with her husband Waymond (Ke Huey Kwan), which is now being audited by the intimidating IRS agent Dierdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis). Adding to Evelyn's stress is the arrival of her demanding Father, Gong Gong (James Wong) from China, an impending divorce initiated by Waymond, and ongoing conflicts with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), who now has a girlfriend named Becky (Tallie Medel).
And even with all of these factors, which would already be more than enough, Evelyn soon discovers that she must connect with her myriad of other selves from multiversal universes in order to defeat a grave threat known as Jobu Tupaki, who can potentially unravel all of existence in every universe.
Perhaps just a hair more than I described an be fully discerned from the film's trailer and truthfully, that it all that I feel comfortable sharing with you here because Daniels' "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is a film that rapturously exceeds itself from the confines of its expansive title and ultimately, extends itself further than anything the trailer could present to you. The glorious surprise of the film in its entirety is in the unknowing and therefore, it should be experienced as such.
I am comfortable expressing to you that Daniels have stuffed the film, to the point of near overloading, with comedy--both slapstick and pitch dark, science fiction and comic book aesthetics, a aching family drama, horror, martial arts films and animation into an orgiastic, wildly anarchistic stew that is proudly indescribable and brazenly defies categorization--a true cinematic gift during a time when everything has to be explained in one sentence or even one classification.
"Everything Everywhere All At Once," through the unfiltered imagination and wide open sky heart of Daniels' storytelling and direction, merged with the equally unfiltered work from their complete filmmaking team--from Larkin Seipie's gorgeous Cinematography, Paul Rogers' whiplash, kaleidoscopic editing, the engulfing score from Son Lux, Kelsi Ephraim's set design and good Lord, Shirley Kurata's costume design and the dazzling makeup design, sound design, art direction and fight choreography--unleashes a full throttle take-it-or-leave-it experience yet it is not a confrontational one.
This is a film of embrace. It is reaching out for us and all we have to do is reach back.
It this makes any sense at all, try to envision or remember how you felt the very first time that you saw The Wachowski's action triumph, reality challenging "The Matrix" (1999). Take that, and then combine films as varied and as singular as Tom Tykwer's "Run Lola Run" (1998), Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" (1999) and "Where The Wild Things Are" (2009), Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), Edgar Wright's "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" (2010), Terrence Malick's "The Tree Of Life" (2011), Boots Riley's "Sorry To Bother You" (2018) and the films of Michel Gondry, Terry Gilliam or the late Ken Russell and you just might gather what kind of a film you are in for.
A film of marital strife and kung fu battles. A film of grave Mother-daughter dynamics and a surreal vision of a universe in which humans have hot dog hands as appendages. A film of the Asian and Asian-American experience combined with deep psychology, enormous sound and vision and the urgent silence and sorrow that suggests William Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969). It is a film of pathos and absurdity, whimsy and nightmares, the sublime, grandiose and poignant...in every frame, at every moment, from beginning to end.
Now, one would think that to have a film this heavily stuffed would be too much of a great thing, even for all of its unabashed creativity and world building and building and building. Yet, Daniels ensures that all of this is not simply art for art's sake or smug independent film quirkiness for there is a method to their specialized multiverse madness where the spinning of a laundromat dryer is a stand in for the karmic wheel and an everything bagel represents the end of all things.
For as all out bonkers as "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is, there is a gravity that supplies the film with purpose, meaning, and a poignancy that I feel will release your personal floodgates by the film's wrenching, resplendent climax as the metaphors abound and the honest philosophical vision at work is the true engine at the soul of the film. For the multiverse can be taken at face value, as a literal form of existence, yet the overall existential quality of the film allows the multiverse to function as something so tangible and true, something evidenced so thrillingly through the exceedingly strong performances from the cast.
Michelle Yeoh is absolutely extraordinary in the leading role of Evelyn Wang, as her journey through the multiverse is rooted in the existential journeys that we all face every single day of our lives. What choices do I make? What can I become? If I take this route, what will be the outcome or if I take that route, will that lead me to to who I feel that I am able to be? What is my potential and is who I imagined myself to be the person that I actually am? Or am I destined to live a life that I never wanted, being caught on a treadmill that stifles my dreams, visions and hope itself?
Through Evelyn, and for ourselves in the audience, the multiverse could exist and serve as every thought and feeling that she and we hold about ourselves within our individualistic places in a chaotic yet symbiotic universe. We are all trying to make sense of something that in essence does not make sense and never will. Yet, we continue to seek meaning in the inherent connections that we share to the universe, the world, to all of our selves that reside within our one self and most importantly, to the people who mean the most to us. For in contact and connection, for in finding unity with those we love, we are then greater able to spiral through the universe together knowing that we are seen, we are understood, we are accepted regardless of who or what we are, who we did or did not become.
Michelle Yeoh rises and exceeds every challenge the Daniels toss her way. It is a performance of tremendous grace, agility, humor, flight, commitment and acceptance of the possibilities contained within life, the universe and everything. Every accolade that shines her way is powerfully earned and deserved as she is formidable.
As her daughter, the ironically named Joy, Stephanie Hsu is Michelle Yeoh's equal as she represents the futility and self perceived failures of navigating existence. She is the bottomless rage at the incredulity of living a life in which one is felt to be unaccepted, eternally misunderstood and unseen, and therefore, unloved for who could love something that is so obviously unlovable. She is the antagonist, the nihilist and what we are experiencing with her is a devastating portrait of mental illness and depression at its darkest and most manic, punishing and despairing, recalling Kirsten Dunst's devastating work in Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia" (2011), for why bother to exist in a world if it was never meant for me?
While Evelyn and Joy serve as the film's yin-yang, Waymond Wang exists to bridge the gap. As Weymond, what a delight it was to see Ke Huy Quan, the former Short Round from Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom" (1984) and Data from Richard Donner's "The Goonies" (1985), after all of this time!! It is a rapid fire, bilingual performance that flows effortlessly from comedy to drama on a dime as we are first introduced to the multiverse through his character.
He is our guide and in doing so, Quan showcased his superlative skill and ability with not only making the concept of the multiverse understandable, but also depicting the differences, shadings and connective tissue to all of his multiversal selves. While being different, they are also all the same and whether hapless or heroic, dashing or down trodden, Waymond provides the moral center of the film's primary conflict. He contains the messages that neither Evelyn or Joy are able to decipher, let alone hear. He binds them together as they threaten to permanently come apart and it is through his unquestionable warmth that the film receives its soul.
Daniels' "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is a mind bending, phantasmagorical, deliriously absurd, beautifully nightmarish, balletically bizarre, psychedelic, polychromatic wonderment that also pierces the heart profoundly and it enormously felt. It is the film that celebrates the act of simply and majestically being alive and how every moment that we live and connect to that life force, that we even try at all at anything is a seismic victory. For living IS a victory.
What a gift it is to go to the movies and witness something that fills you up so blissfully that the effect is lifting. Believe me, dear readers. "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is an absolute triumph.
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