'Everything Everywhere All at Once' film review: A deliriously overwhelming & soulful sci-fi masterstroke
The thematically ambitious, wildly entertaining sci-fi action comedy 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (opens in select cities April 1) is an unabashedly silly & poetically humane masterwork that works on every scale.
In short: Chinese immigrant Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) struggles to keep her business open - when she is suddenly told she is the only person who save all existence spanning infinite parallel universes from an unspeakable evil. Also stars Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis.
'All At Once' is the incredibly rare film that succeeds in achieving its grandiose goals. It boldly wraps its arms around the mind-bending notion of the multiverse - and all the limitless possibilities inherent to the concept. It's blatantly ludicrous, to the point of including a talking raccoon and weaponized sex toys. While 'All At Once' wholly embraces the silliness of the multiverse, yet the script takes the plot and its characters serious, and doesn’t step into realm of mocking itself (which would undermine the stakes and film). The stakes extend to all of existence, yet 'All At Once' is first and foremost a family drama.
Strip away all the various parallel versions of Evelyn and the crazy multiverse elements, 'and All At Once' is firmly rooted in Evelyn and her frayed relationships with her family. Great science fiction films use sci-fi conventions to tell a dramatic story, whereas bad science fiction is just wacky sci-fi tropes strung together with distracting visual effects and CGI, with only the artifice of "storytelling." (Consider the difference between the 1990 iteration of 'Total Recall' - now considered essential science fiction - and the forgettable and maligned 2012 remake. Fundamentally the same basic story - but one version has heart, the other has no soul.) 'All At Once' is pure, next-level science fiction lunacy - but co-directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (‘Swiss Army Man’) always keep the stakes, motivations and heart of the film centered on Evelyn. 'All At Once' is a work of grand vision, inspired confidence and delicately crafted humanity - and all credit to the Daniels for executing an existentially profound film that overwhelms, excites and delights.
Michelle Yeoh dazzles in a film the demands everything from her, often all at once. The first Evelyn the audience meets is a frazzled woman disappointed in her life who is given the impossible mission of saving the multiverse. And its a grand character journey for Evelyn, as she reflects upon her life choices that led her to her current life - while the film ponders all the different paths her life could have taken had she made just a few different decisions. 'All At Once' gets to play with all the fantastic possibilities of her life - but these moments are always rooted in Evelyn reconciling her discontentment with her current life and her longing for a different life. Yeoh perfectly wears all the various hats she's asked to wear - from glamourous celebrity to downtrodden small business owner to frustrated restaurant chef. Yeoh isn't simply one character - she's asked to step into every variation of Evelyn as the film whiplashes the audience across the multiverse. And Yeoh steps up to the daunting challenge -- all while beautifully characterizing the film's primary Evelyn as she transforms from nondescript woman with unrealized dreams to an absolute badass.
Amid all the chaos and heady concepts, it's co-star Ke Huy Quan who low-key steals every scene as Evelyn's meek but effervescent husband Waymond. If Quan looks familiar, it's because he similarly stole every scene in one of the biggest films of all time: he played Short Round in 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.' Now 50 years old, Quan still effortlessly exudes youthful charm and energy, as a fizzing glass half full counterpoint to Evelyn's glass half empty approach to life. It's such a delight to see Quan back on the big screen - he brings levity when the film gets a bit bleak and he brings heart that reminds the audience what is truly at stake.
Everyone has pondered the 'what if' thought exercise and 'All At Once' indulges these fanciful ideations without aggrandizing any alternative as "the best" alternate world for Evelyn (yes, even the alternate universe where Evelyn has fame and fortune is imperfect). But 'All At Once' isn't merely some empty-headed 'what if' flick - the script is totally comfortable accepting life on life's terms, with messy decisions and challenging relationships and all. While Evelyn, a woman in her late 50s, ponders the roads not taken, the film's antagonist the personification of rejection and pain. The Daniels juggle all these disparate notions, from the personally intimate scaled all the way up to the universal infinite, to craft perhaps one of the very best films of 2022 and certainly a sci-fi classic in the making.
Final verdict: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' has all the fun of playing in the multiverse while telling a story of regrets, nihilism & unyielding hope.
Score: 5/5
'Everything Everywhere All at Once' opens in select cities April 1 and in theaters nationwide April 8. This sci-fi action comedy is rated R for some violence, sexual material and language and has a running time of 132 minutes.
