Everything Everywhere All At Once
This movie reminded me of the great fun and creativity that indie films can have. In the past few years there seems to be an overflow of arthouse indie films that are emotion driven dramas with barely coherent storylines or extremely depressing situations. Everything Everywhere All At Once recaptures the fun and imagination of indie films and delivers an emotional story of relationships. Mother Daughter, Husband Wife, Father Daughter, Villian and Hero and just basic human understanding.
This film does touch on all the topics you would expect in this day an age but none of it feels forced and wedged in to make it feel like its being “woke” for woke sake. The family dynamic is very relatable regardless of race or gender.
This movie stars Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan (Short round- Temple of Doom, Data - Goonies) the great James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu.
Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang a stressed out, worn out co-owner of a small laundromat who is being audited by the IRS and is reflecting on her life decisions in regret. Who is to afraid or ashamed to introduce her daughter’s girlfriend to her traditional father as anything other than a good friend, and who is too overwhelmed to listen to her husband who just wants to try and repair their marriage.
Evenly soon finds herself being contacted by another version of her husband from the “alpha” universe who is there to draft her in to fight a great evil that is destroying the multiverse and specifically hunting for her, and teaches her how to tap into the skills and talents she has in her other lives. Her other lives are as a martial arts movie star, a hibachi chef competing with her co-worker, a sign spinner, a tradition Chinese singer, to being in a relationship with Jamie Lee Curtis’s IRS character with hotdog fingers and a rock. The multiverse can get weird, but still had us laughing out loud at the different situations.
This is where the high action and comedy comes in. In order to tap into these skills a specific action needs to take place, but the more random the action is the stronger the connection is so we have scenes of people eating Chapstick, professing their love for their attacker, stapling paper to their heads and doing somethings so unexpected it had us laughing to tears. This movie is just a great ride.
Ultimately the theme of this movie is understanding and empathy. The villain just wants someone to feel what they are feeling, the emptiness and loneliness of existence that we all feel sometimes, a daughter wants her father to be proud of her, a daughter struggling with whether to walk away from her family or try and get acceptance she so desires, a husband who is looked at as being weak for his generous and positive outlook. Learning that sometimes spreading love, letting go, and acceptance, and forgiveness are better solutions to problems than anger and violence.
These themes are usually taught to us through heavy religious overtones, or depression tragedy that we are told to get over and move on from. Seeing these themes and life lessons through the eyes of everyday people thrust into and unbelievable adventure but ending at the same solution caries more weight than any sermon or speech.
This is the first movie of 2022 that I will say is a must see.
Rating: Full Price
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