Everything Everywhere All at Once

Template:Short descriptionTemplate:Use American EnglishTemplate:Use mdy datesTemplate:Infobox filmEverything Everywhere All at Once is a 2022 Americanabsurdistcomedy-drama film written and directed byDan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as "Daniels"), who co-produced the film with theRusso brothers. The film starsMichelle Yeoh as aChinese-American woman beingaudited by the Internal Revenue Service who discovers that she must connect withparallel universe versions of herself to prevent a powerful being from causing the destruction of themultiverse.Stephanie Hsu,Ke Huy Quan,Jenny Slate,Harry Shum Jr.,James Hong, andJamie Lee Curtis appear in supporting roles. The film has been described as a "swirl of genre anarchy"^[1] and features elements ofblack comedy,science fiction,fantasy,martial arts film, andanimation.

Kwan and Scheinert researched the concept of the multiverse as far back as 2010, and began penning the screenplay as early as 2016. Originally written forJackie Chan, the lead role was later reworked and offered to Yeoh.^[2][3] Principal photography began in January 2020 and wrapped in March as theCOVID-19 pandemic reached the United States. The film features music composed bySon Lux, including collaborations with musiciansMitski,David Byrne, andAndré 3000.

Everything Everywhere All at Once premiered atSouth by Southwest on March 11, 2022, and began a limited theatrical release in the United States on March 25, before a wide release byA24 on April 8. The film received widespread critical acclaim; reviewers praised its imagination, direction, Yeoh's performance, and handling of themes such asexistentialism,nihilism, and Asian-American identity. It has grossed over $79 million worldwide, surpassingUncut Gems (2019) to become A24's highest-grossing film domestically.

Plot[]

The film is separated into three parts, with the names matching the title of the film.

Part 1: Everything[]

Evelyn Quan Wang is a Chinese-American woman who runs a struggling laundromat with her husband, Waymond. Tensions are high due to the laundromat being audited by theIRS. Additionally, Waymond is trying to give Evelyn divorce papers; Evelyn's demanding father, Gong Gong,Template:Efn has just arrived from China; and Evelyn's daughter, Joy, has been trying to get her mother to accept her girlfriend, Becky.

While at the IRS building for a meeting with IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre, Waymond's personality changes when his body is briefly taken over by Alpha Waymond, a version of Waymond from a universe he calls the "Alphaverse". Alpha Waymond explains to Evelyn that many parallel universes exist, since every choice made creates a new universe. The people of the Alphaverse, led by the late Alpha Evelyn, developed "verse-jumping" technology that allows people to access the skills, memories, and body of their parallel universe counterparts by fulfilling specific conditions. Themultiverse is being threatened by Jobu Tupaki, formerly Alpha Joy. Her mind was splintered after Alpha Evelyn pushed her to extensively verse-jump; Jobu Tupaki now experiences all universes at once and can verse-jump and manipulate matter at will. With her godlike power she has created ablack hole-like "everything bagel"Template:Efn that can potentially destroy the multiverse.

Evelyn is given verse-jumping technology to fight Jobu Tupaki's verse-jumping minions, who begin converging in the IRS building. Evelyn learns of Waymond's plans to divorce her and discovers other lives where she made different choices and flourished, such as by becoming akung fu master and movie star instead of leaving China with Waymond, who becomes a successful businessman. Alpha Waymond comes to believe that Evelyn, as the greatest failure of all Evelyns of the multiverse, has the untapped potential to defeat Jobu Tupaki. Alpha Gong Gong instructs Evelyn to kill Joy to hinder Jobu Tupaki, but Evelyn refuses. She decides she must face Jobu Tupaki by gaining the same powers as her, so she verse-jumps repeatedly while battling Jobu Tupaki's minions and Alpha Gong Gong's soldiers. After the battle, Alpha Waymond is killed by Jobu Tupaki in the Alphaverse and Evelyn's mind overloads.

Part 2: Everywhere[]

Evelyn's mind splinters and she discovers other, bizarre universes, including one in which humans have hot dogs for fingers and she is in a romantic relationship with Deirdre, and another where she works alongside ateppanyaki chef who is secretly puppeteered by aRatatouille-like raccoon. She learns that Jobu Tupaki created the everything bagel not to destroy everything, but to destroy herself, and has been searching for an Evelyn who can understand her. Jobu Tupaki feels that because there are so many vast universes and unending chaos,nothing truly matters.

In other universes, the Wangs are about to lose the laundromat due to tax errors, and businessman Waymond rejects movie star Evelyn after decades apart. Evelyn is nearly swayed to Jobu Tupaki's cause and stabs her universe's Waymond. She almost joins Jobu Tupaki in entering the bagel, but stops when she hears Waymond's calls to be kind and have hope. Evelyn defeats Alpha Gong Gong and Jobu Tupaki's fighters by using her multiverse knowledge to find what is hurting each of them and gives them happiness. Evelyn reaches Jobu Tupaki and tells her that she is not alone and that Evelyn will always choose to be with her, despite everywhere else she could be. Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, Evelyn confronts Gong Gong and reconciles with Waymond and Joy, and Waymond convinces Deirdre to let the Wangs redo their taxes. Jobu Tupaki initially rejects Evelyn, but returns to her, and they embrace.

Part 3: All at Once[]

Shortly thereafter, the family's relationships and lives have improved; Becky is now regarded as a part of the family, Waymond and Evelyn share a brief but romantic moment for the first time in a long while, and they return to the IRS building on a second chance to file their taxes. As Deirdre talks, Evelyn's attention is momentarily drawn to her alternate selves and the multiverse, before she grounds herself back in her home universe.

Cast[]

• Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Quan Wang, a dissatisfied and overwhelmed laundromat owner
• Ke Huy Quan as Waymond Wang, Evelyn's meek and goofy husband
• Stephanie Hsu as Joy Wang / Jobu Tupaki, Evelyn and Waymond's daughter and a threat to the multiverse
• James Hong as Gong Gong (ChineseTemplate:Linktext, "maternal grandfather"),^[4] Evelyn's demanding father
• Jamie Lee Curtis as Deirdre Beaubeirdre, an IRS inspector
• Tallie Medel as Becky Sregor, Joy's girlfriend
• Jenny Slate as Debbie the Dog Mom / "Big Nose", a laundromat customer. The character's original name ("Big Nose") is set to be changed for the film's digital release due to negative feedback regarding its problematic association toJewish stereotypes.^[5]
• Harry Shum Jr. as Chad, ateppanyaki chef working alongside Evelyn in an alternate universe
• Biff Wiff as Rick, a laundromat customer
• Sunita Mani as TV Musical Queen
• Aaron Lazar as TV Musical Soldier
• Audrey Wasilewski and Peter Banifaz as Alpha RV Officers
• Daniel Scheinert as District Manager
• Andy Le and Brian Le as Alpha Trophy Jumpers

Randy Newman, who has scored nineDisney-Pixar animated films, appears in an uncredited role as the voice of Raccacoonie, a reference to the Pixar-animated filmRatatouille (2007); he is officially credited as a featured artist on the track "Now We're CookinTemplate:' ".^[6]Dan Kwan has uncredited cameos as a man sucked into the bagel and a mugger.^[7]

Production[]

Development and writing[]

Co-directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert stated they began researching the concept of the multiverse in 2010, after being exposed to the concept ofmodal realism in the 1986 filmSherman's March.^[8] Kwan described the release of the 2018 filmSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which also features a multiverse concept, as "a little upsetting because we were like, 'Oh shit, everyone's going to beat us to this thing we've been working on.Template:' "^[8] He also stated, "Watching thesecond season ofRick and Morty was really painful. I was like, 'They've already done all the ideas we thought were original!' It was a really frustrating experience. So I stopped watchingRick and Morty while we were writing this project."^[8]

In early drafts, the directors planned for the main character to have undiagnosedattention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); through his research for the project, Kwan learned that he himself had undiagnosed ADHD.^[9]

The universe in which Evelyn trains in martial arts and becomes an action movie star features scenes visually and contextually inspired by the films of Hong Kong directorWong Kar-wai;^[8] Chris Lee ofVulture wrote that these scenes "conjur[e] a mood of exquisite romantic yearning that will be instantly recognizable [...] as touchstones" of Wong's works.^[8] The universe in which Evelyn and Joy are rocks was influenced by the 1969 children's bookSylvester and the Magic Pebble and the 2017 video gameEverything.^[8]

Kwan stated that the idea of the everything bagel created by Jobu Tupaki "started as just a throwaway joke."^[8] Scheinert noted that they spent time attempting to develop the religion of bagel followers, but encountered complications: "[Jobu Tupaki]'s a nihilist; should there bedogma? Should there be abook? What should their practices be as a religion? The bagel stuck because it became such a useful, simple symbol that we could point to as filmmakers. And you don't have to explain it much beyond the joke."^[8]

Casting[]

During pre-production,Jackie Chan was considered for the starring role; the script was originally written for him before Kwan and Scheinert changed their minds and re-conceived the lead role as a woman, feeling it would make the husband-wife dynamic in the story more relatable.^[3]

When the script was initially rewritten with the lead character as a woman, the character was renamed "Michelle Wang"; according toMichelle Yeoh, "If you ask the Daniels, when they started on this draft, they focused on, 'Well, we are doing this for Michelle Yeoh.Template:' "^[10] The character's name was ultimately changed to Evelyn; despite the parallels in the final film between Yeoh and the universe in which Evelyn is a martial artist and movie star,^[11] Yeoh opposed naming the character Michelle, stating that "She is not called Michelle because [...] Evelyn deserves her own story to be told. This is a very ordinary mother [and] housewife who is trying her best to be a good mother to her daughter, a good daughter to her father, a wife that's trying to keep the family together [...] I don't like to integrate me, Michelle Yeoh, into the characters that I play, because they all deserve their own journey and their stories to be told."^[11]

It was announced in August 2018 that Yeoh andAwkwafina were cast to star in an "interdimensional action film" from Kwan and Scheinert, withAnthony and Joe Russo set to produce.^[12] Awkwafina exited the project due to scheduling conflicts in January 2020. Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis were added to the cast, with Hsu replacing Awkwafina. The film marked the return to film acting for Quan, who had retired from the profession in 2002 due to having few casting opportunities at the time.^[13][14]

Filming[]

Filming began in January 2020, withA24 announcing it would finance and distribute the film.^[15] Principal photography wrapped up in early March 2020 during the onset of theCOVID-19 pandemic.^[16]

Themes[]

Everything Everywhere All at Once incorporates elements from a number of genres, includingblack comedy,science fiction,fantasy,martial arts film, andanimation.^[17][18]A. O. Scott ofThe New York Times described the film as a "swirl of genre anarchy", explaining that "while the hectic action sequences and flights of science-fiction mumbo-jumbo are a big part of the fun (and the marketing), they aren't really the point. [The movie is] a bittersweet domestic drama, a marital comedy, a story of immigrant striving and a hurt-filled ballad of mother-daughter love."^[1]

The film explores the concepts of themeaning of life andnihilism; according to Charles Bramesco ofThe Guardian: "The bagel of doom and its tightening grip on Evelyn'sGen Z daughter lend themselves to the climactic declaration that there's nothing worse than submitting to the nihilism so trendy with the next generation. Our lone hope of recourse is to embrace all the love and beauty surrounding us, if only we're present enough to see it."^[19] This nihilism is also explored through the film's exploration ofAsian-American identity.Anne Anlin Cheng wrote in theThe Washington Post, "It's not only that the multiverse acts as a metaphor for the immigrant Asian American experience, or a convenient parable for the dislocations and personality splits suffered by hyphenated (that is, "Asian-American") citizens. It also becomes a rather heady vehicle for confronting and negotiating Asian-pessimism," a term she uses in reference toAfro-pessimism.^[20]

ConsequenceTemplate:'s Clint Worthington wrote that, "for all itsdadaistabsurdism and blink-if-you-miss-it pace, Daniels weaves the chaotic possibilities into the multiverse into a cohesive story about the aches and pains of the road not traveled, and the need to carve out your own meaning in a meaningless universe."^[21] Describing Jobu Tupaki'smodus operandi, Worthington notes "the living contradiction that is the everything bagel: if you put everything on a bagel, what more is left? And if you've experienced everything that the multiverse can offer, what's the point of any of it?"^[21] Co-director Daniel Kwan stated that the everything bagel concept "did two things. It allowed us to talk about nihilism without being too eye roll-y. And it creates aMacGuffin: a doomsday device. If in the first half of the movie, people think that the bagel is here to destroy the world, and in the second half you realize it's a depressed person trying to destroy themselves; it just takes everything about action movies and turns it into something more personal."^[8]

The film engages textually andmetatextually with the "real world" of the viewer.^[22][23] Critics have noted that one version of Evelyn—a famous martial arts movie star—is a portrayal of Yeoh herself,^[23][2][24] that Ke Huy Quan's experience as a stunt coordinator is made diegetic use of in Waymond's fight scenes,^[25] and that James Hong's transformation into "a more sinister, English-fluent, Machiavellian strategist" parallels his character Lo Pan inBig Trouble in Little China (1986).^[22][26]

Music[]

Template:MainThe musical score is composed bySon Lux — a three-member band featuringRyan Lott, Ian Chang andRafiq Bhatia.^[27] Daniels wanted them to approach the score individually, and not as a band, as according to Ryan Lott, the lead band member "I think that the complete picture of not only who we are as a band, but also who we are as individuals and what we have accomplished and the places we’ve gone creatively individually, meant for them that there was a possibility that many of these universes of sound could be within reach with this particular trio".^[28]

Son Lux took more than 3–6 years while creating and composing the score, and during this period, the band came up with more than 100 musical cues.^[29] The album featured 49 pieces, lasting for over two hours and was known for its collaboration with prominent musicians,^[30] includingMitski,David Byrne, a flute-playingAndré 3000,Randy Newman,Moses Sumney, andyMusic, plus others.^[31][6] Two singles: "This Is a Life" featuring Mitski and Byrne,^[32] and "Fence" featuring Sumney, were released as singles on March 4 and 14.^[33] The album was released on March 25, 2022, to positive critical response.^[34][35]

Release[]

Theatrical[]

Everything Everywhere All at Once had its world premiere at theSouth by Southwest film festival on March 11, 2022.^[36] It had a limited release in theaters on March 25, 2022,^[37] followed by a nationwide release on April 8, in the United States by A24.^[38] On March 30, 2022, the film was released in selectIMAX theaters in the U.S. for one night only. Due to the popularity of the film, it returned to select IMAX theaters for one week starting on April 29, 2022.^[39][40] The film was not released in most parts of the Middle East includingSaudi Arabia andKuwait, but excludingIsrael, due tocensorship of LGBT issues in those countries.^[41] The film was released in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2022.^[42]

Home media[]

The film was released ondigital streaming platforms on June 7, 2022, and is slated for release onBlu-ray,DVD, andUltra HD Blu-ray on July 5, 2022, byLionsgate Home Entertainment.^[43][44]

Reception[]

Box office[]

Template:As of,Everything Everywhere All at Once has grossed $61.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $17.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $79.1 million.^[45][46]

In the United States and Canada, the film earned an estimated $509,600 from ten venues in its opening weekend. Its debut had a theater average of $50,965, the second-best since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic for a platform release (behindLicorice Pizza), and the then-best opening theater average in 2022.^[47] In its second weekend, the film grossed $1.1 million from 38 theaters, finishing ninth at the box office.^[48] The film received awide expansion in its third weekend, going from 38 to 1,250 theaters.^[49][50] It ended up making $6.1 million, finishing sixth at the box office.^[51][52] Playing in 2,220 theaters the following weekend, it earned $6.2 million, finishing fourth.^[53] In its sixth weekend, the film added $5.5 million, part of which was attributed to a wider IMAX release following its successful box office run.^[17] It added $3.5 million in its seventh weekend,^[54] and another $3.3 million in its eighth.^[55] By May 21 the film had made over $51 million, surpassingUncut Gems ($50 million) as A24's highest grossing film domestically.^[56] The film went on to earn $3.1 million in its ninth weekend,^[57] $2.5 million in its tenth,^[58] and $2 million in its eleventh.^[59]

Critical response[]

On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film has a 95% approval rating based on 297 reviews by critics, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The website's consensus reads, "Led by an outstanding Michelle Yeoh,Everything Everywhere All at Once lives up to its title with an expertly calibrated assault on the senses."^[60]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[61] Audiences polled byPostTrak gave it an 89% positive score, with 77% saying they would definitely recommend it.^[51]

David Ehrlich ofIndieWire called it an "orgiastic work of slaphappy genius", praising the direction and performances, particularly Yeoh's.^[62]The Hollywood ReporterTemplate:'s David Rooney called it a "frenetically plotted serve of stoner heaven [that] is insanely imaginative and often a lot of fun", complimenting the cast and score but found the handling of the story's underlying theme underwhelming.^[63] In her review forRogerEbert.com, Marya E. Gates commended Yeoh's performance, writing "Yeoh is the anchor of the film, given a role that showcases her wide range of talents, from her fine martial art skills to her superb comic timing to her ability to excavate endless depths of rich human emotion often just from a glance or a reaction."^[64] Charles Bramesco, writing forThe Guardian, complimented the Daniels for constructing a "large, elaborate, polished and detailed expression of a vision".^[19] Amy Nicholson ofThe Wall Street Journal wrote: "Over its nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time, the movie's ambitions double, and double again, as though its a petri dish teeming with Mr. Kwan and Mr. Scheinert's wildest ideas."^[65]

In her review forVanity Fair,Maureen Ryan highlighted Yeoh's performance, writing "Yeoh imbues Evelyn with moving shades of melancholy, regret, resolve and growing curiosity" and adding she "makes her embrace of lead-character energy positively gripping".^[66] Adam Nayman ofThe Ringer referred to the film as "a love letter to Yeoh" adding, "Everything Everywhere All At Once is extremely poignant, giving its 59-year-old star a chance to flex unexpected acting muscles while revisiting the high-flying fight choreography that made her a global icon back in the 1990s."^[67] In his review forChicago Sun-Times, Jake Coyle wrote that thoughEverything Everywhere "can verge on overload, it’s this liberating sense of limitless possibility that the movie leaves you filled with, both in its freewheeling anything-goes playfulness and in its surprisingly tender portrait ofexistential despair."^[68]

Notes[]

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References[]

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External links[]

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Template:DanielsTemplate:Anthony and Joe Russo