Cinematography:
Larkin SeipleComposer:
Son LuxCast:
Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., Sunita Mani, Aaron Lazar, Andy Le (more)Plots(1)
Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a hilarious and big-hearted sci-fi action adventure about an exhausted Chinese American woman (Michelle Yeoh) who can't seem to finish her taxes. (Roadshow Entertainment)
Videos (2)
Reviews (18)
The title doesn't lie. But I was more stunned than dazzled by everything that was happening everywhere and all at once, and I didn't buy on it, even at the end, when it turned out that it made sense and they obviously knew what they were doing and why. If they had only done it for maybe an hour and a half, it would have been more digestible for me. I enjoyed it, Michelle Yeoh is amazing, and the film straddles genres in a beautiful way, as if was directed and written by Bong Joon-ho... But it's far from him.
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For some people the film of the year, for others an insufferable piece of shit, and for me somewhere in between. It's definitely one of the most original and weird films of recent years, but bizarre and wacky isn't necessarily great. The story is, in one sentence, about a woman who files her taxes while having to save the world through parallel universes. The plot itself is by no means revelatory or sophisticated, I found the acting below average (the Chinese speaking English brought the whole film down a level, the whole acting came off as awkward), the action is quite low and it's not my style. I used to dig Jackie Chan when I was 13, but by the time of The Raid and The Night Comes for Us, this kung fu style, though obviously self-parodying, is a bit boring. The whole world has no set rules, almost nothing makes sense and it's chaos, yes there's a lot of creative invention and a lot of interesting ideas, but at what cost huh? Even beyond the point of awkwardness, cringefest. The film is an homage to Asia, but it mostly takes from it what I like the least: obscure and bizarre madness from Japanese culture and parodies of 80s kung fu and Hong-Kong. It's a shame the film wasn't R-rated, maybe the gore would have given it more aesthetic cachet, but for me it's sadly unsatisfying and the exorbitant footage doesn't add much to it. I didn't even find it funny except for a couple of minor moments (the rock scene) and the light moments that I found entertaining were quite few, certainly less than I expected. The final fight with the quick change of locations was impressive though, and the playful direction pulls it up to at least a better average for me. I won't give more than that, certainly not sober. However, I'm quite surprised at the positive reception, for how borderline it is in places to the viewer's common taste. Story 3/5. Action 3/5, Humour 3/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 3/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 2/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 3/5, Actors 2/5.
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That's how you put together a rock, a Ratatouille, and the long arm of the tax authority, and you get something between Don’t Look Back, Rick and Morty and Big Trouble in Little China. By all logic, it should be a disparate hodgepodge of half-baked ideas, allusions to anything, originality at all costs, and stupidity². All this in charge of someone who happened to have a solid budget and an impressive ensemble, but no producer to hold the reins. And that's what it is. However unlikely it may be (or maybe we are happy that it worked in spite of everything), it is, worlds wonder, a cohesive and tightly grasped whole, which is undeserving of only a slightly overblown runtime. Thanks to confident direction, and the aforementioned perfect cast, it handily manages to throw up one bizarre scene after another, as well as wringing out emotions in a brilliantly effective "family members finding their way to themselves and each other" equation throughout.
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What happens when you mix some of Marvel's stinking failed comic book movies with a bit of The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, an attempt at a revolutionary depiction of a story about family values (not) fulfilling their potential and totally WTF (read modern) pop culture moments? An absolutely frenetic travesty, where nobody knows what will happen in five minutes, but at the same time nobody really cares.
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Watching this movie felt like downing two meatloaves, half a kilo of pork belly, and washing it down with a gallon of beer. It’s an overload for the senses — a kind of film-induced sensory overload. The entire time, I felt like I was losing my mind. I kept trying to make sense of what I was seeing, searching for some logical thread or anchor point to guide me through the story. Spoiler: I didn’t find it. Yet, for over two hours, I was completely fascinated. The plot stretches logic to its breaking point, and the editing seamlessly blends views from different dimensions into single shots. The performances are incredible: Ke Huy Quan channels a young Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh plays everything from a depressed family member to a kung-fu master with a pinky strong as steel, and Jamie Lee Curtis delivers a performance that’s one big WTF. In fact, the whole film is one big WTF. If it sweeps the Oscars, I wouldn’t be surprised, and I’d actually be happy for it.
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