Review of Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) by Rebecca31 — 15 May 2022

Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is an aging Chinese immigrant living in America with her own laundromat business. Struggling with everyday problems like family, taxes and an upcoming audit, Evelyn doesn’t seem to be living her best life. Things soon take a rapid change when she becomes swept up in an absolutely insane adventure in which she alone can save the world by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.

In the infinite multiverse there are quite literally endless possibilities. There are no rules and no boundaries. It gives the filmmakers complete freedom to do whatever they like, while also avoiding the pitfalls of overloading the audience and still keeping an actual story going through all the mayhem. Everything Everywhere All at Once has blown everything out of the water and pushes the boundaries of filmmaking to an entirely new level. Directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert who gave us another crazy film, Swiss Army Man have created something really special with Everything Everywhere All at Once. So even though my head is melted and I felt I needed time to process the insanity of Everything Everywhere All at Once, this is a film I urge all of you to see.

At its heart it’s a story about the stresses of life, the feelings of regret and the constant ‘what if’ that I believe we can all relate to. There is also a mother daughter theme amongst the chaos. It’s really unlike anything you’ve ever seen before and I know we’ve had a few very recent trend of movies exploring the multiverse (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Spider-Man: No Way Home) but this is something else entirely on another level. There are so many crazy alternative universes jam-packed into it making you as an audience question every potential life you could have lived and also showing you some mental universes you’d never think possible. I’m not going to say too much as all my reviews are spoiler free but Everything Everywhere All at Once is this decade’s The Matrix. The story takes you on a very chaotic journey which is also far more emotional than I expected. Michelle Yeoh and her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) are absolutely wonderful. You’ve also got Ke Huy Quan (Short Round), James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis in there. The entire cast are brilliant and I can only image the fun they all had creating this spectacular movie that had most of the cinema in stitches laughing.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is feckin’ bonkers, highly original and an experience not to be missed. Highly recommended, although I can tell you this will not be for everyone, and the only way to know for sure is to give it a chance but you cannot beat the feeling of seeing this madness in a packed cinema.