The Reel Review
A Chinese immigrant laundromat owner stressed over a tax audit and an unhappy home life is swept up in an unlikely adventure when she learns that only she can save the world by connecting with her alternate lives lived in other universes, in this kooky fantasy/sci-fi/comedy starring Michelle Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Memoirs of a Geisha).
Everything Everywhere All At Once is a dizzying tornado of a movie – a totally bonkers genre mashup from writer/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the duo behind 2016’s Swiss Army Man. It is a goofy, googly-eyed assault on the senses featuring hot dog fingers, butt plugs and talking rocks – a parody about a life where we are constantly bombarded by information about impending doom – but still have to deal with such mundane activities as paying taxes.
Yeoh shows impressive range in a career-defining performance, aided by a rousing supporting cast that includes an adorable Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), Stephanie Hsu (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and a hysterical Jamie Lee Curtis as the grumpy, frumpy tax auditor.
With so much focus on its creative goofiness, the nearly two-and-a-half-hour story itself drifts at times, but the nonstop lunacy and heartfelt message about the importance of making human connections to make life worth living makes the wildly unique Everything Everywhere All At Once a gleeful, perspective-checking winner.
REEL FACTS
• In Evelyn’s reality where she is a movie star, real life footage is used of Michelle Yeoh on the red carpet for the 2018 film, Crazy Rich Asians.
• Everything Everywhere All At Once marks the acting comeback for Ke Huy Quan, who retired from acting in 2002. Quan was Indiana Jones’ young sidekick Short Round in 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
• Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, met while studying film at Boston’s Emerson College. Initially they directed music videos (“Turn Down for What” by DJ Snake and Lil Jon, “Rize of the Fenix” by Tenacious D), transitioning to feature films in 2016.
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