Who among us has not wondered what more we might be? How our lives could be altered (read: better) if we had just made one major decision differently? Hadn’t allowed a certain fork in the road of our trajectory to form so fully? Everything Everywhere All At Once asks all of these questions and so many more. After all, it’s a movie about “everything”—and also the nothingness of existence itself.
To fill the role of nihilistic “ruler of the universe” is Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Tsu, who you’ll surely recognize from her standout role in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Unbeknownst to laundromat owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), this “ruler” is her arch nemesis in the many other universes that exist without her knowledge. It is her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), from the Alpha Universe, who interrupts her tax audit with a very scary, very trollish auditor named, what else, Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis, in an epic performance), to inform her of this. And, although Deirdre is there to remind Evelyn that nothing could possibly be as important as the very conversation they’re having right now, her mind has wandered—literally—elsewhere. Specifically, into the janitor’s closet where Alpha Waymond is there to explain what the fuck is actually going on. And that is: a threat to every dimension in the multiverse as a result of something Jobu Tupaki has constructed. An entity that no one is fully certain about in terms of what it is and what it can do, only that it’s already been affecting things in each dimension (including, worst of all, making coffee taste wrong).
Written and directed by Daniels (a.k.a. Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), the famously “cerebral” duo still recreates some of the same “puerile” and absurdist humor present in their 2016 debut, Swiss Army Man. Namely, when butt plugs become heavily involved in the prospect of “verse-jumping” (not a poetical term in this case). What’s more, both films offer their own “pop philosophy” (and body puppeteering, for that matter), with Everything Everywhere All At Once being the more fine-tuned of the two projects. And if this were a Hollywood pitch, someone would likely call it: “Samuel Beckett with bells and whistles.”
For one thing, Beckett would certainly not incorporate into his work a gadget like the one Alpha Waymond proceeds to wield in that IRS building in Simi Valley. One with a screen that reads: “Altering Life Path.” Would that Apple (or Elon) really could commodify that idea into something real. That we could verse-jump like Evelyn and see what our various selves might be doing in a parallel universe. And, thus, know for certain which choice we should have made during a palpable fork in the road.
In one life, Evelyn is a chef; in another: a kung-fu movie star; in another: a singer; in another: a sign twirler; in another: a lesbian living in a civilization with hot dog fingers. So many alternate universes with alternate life paths that the Evelyn in this one can only be expected to be as mediocre and “talentless” as she is. A “jill-of-all-trades,” if you will. And that’s part of why she ends up writing off her “hobbies” as business expenses. Including a karaoke machine (which speaks to that singer self of hers in a parallel universe). The very expense write-off that is most affronting of all to Deirdre, who marks it out with a giant black circle (the symbolism of which we’ll soon come to understand).
It is precisely because Evelyn has failed so spectacularly in this universe that Waymond chooses her to help him save the entire metaverse. She’s like an unfilled vessel waiting for all of her talents from other lives to be “plopped” inside of her mind and accessed. Evelyn is also told that doing so “horribly” in this existence means that she must be destined, at long last, for a unique form of greatness. And it’s here that Daniels take the opportunity to highlight the notion of the “little people” being grossly under-looked. To spotlight the ones who perform low-wage jobs that should actually pay much more via Evelyn tapping into skills from her other selves. For example, the agility required for sign twirling comes in quite handy when she’s staving off SWAT team members and/or verse-jumping lackeys coming for her in the IRS building.
And it’s one of those skills that falls under what’s known as “competency porn.” A genre that has racked up many views on the likes of YouTube and Instagram in the same way that pimple-popping videos do. People want to feel the satisfaction of a job well done, and nothing better exemplifies that than so-called low-wage labor (e.g. sign spinners, brick layers, pizza throwers, etc.). This is why Scheinhert noted to Vulture of this aspect of the film, “We got excited about specifically tapping into a lot of universes where someone has a really impressive skill but it’s one that is often overlooked or underpaid. That was more interesting than going into a universe where she’s a brilliant mathematician—” Kwan interjects, “Or a CIA agent. It was way more fun to make the everyday normal person feel like a superpower.” Because, let’s be honest, it does take superhuman strength just to get through the day-to-day as an ordinary human. Especially the ones in the universe where humans have somehow evolved to have giant hot dogs as their fingers. It is also in this universe that Deirdre is Evelyn’s lover (which tracks with the moment when Evelyn is told to randomly profess her love for Deirdre in her own universe in order to jump into another one).
In the “hot dog hand universe,” sexual ecstasy seems to be indicated by spurting mustard and ketchup out of one’s fingertips. Which, yes, sounds even messier than regular sex. But perhaps even more absurd is the idea that an everything bagel is the source of the multiverse’s destruction. A detail that turns out to be a MacGuffin (and it’s been too long since we’ve had a really good one of those in cinema). For, all this time, everyone has assumed that Jobu wants to destroy the metaverse when, in fact, she really just wants to commit suicide by getting sucked up into the black hole of the bagel. Having “seen the world, done it all” (as Lana would say), Jobu knows that the chaos in every realm signifies the meaninglessness of everything and fortifies her nihilistic nefariousness.
At the same time, she can’t help continuing to search for the Evelyn that will truly understand her. In this regard, Everything Everywhere All At Once becomes a decided “mother-daughter movie” (“Stop calling me Evelyn!” she screams at Jobu toward the end. “I am your mother!”). Reminiscent of the 1942 children’s book The Runaway Bunny, wherein a mother bunny tells her child, “If you run away, I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.” Ironically, Evelyn’s own father, Gong Gong (James Hong), allows Evelyn to run away with Waymond without really trying to stop her or go after her. It is because of this slight that Evelyn is so determined to keep her own daughter close, mimicking The Runaway Bunny pattern of the child saying something like, “If you run after me, I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you” and the mother responding, “If you become a fish in a trout stream, I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”
Still, Jobu—through the body of Joy—declares, “Nothing matters.” Not even a familial bond. And doesn’t it help to know that when you’ve wasted your life? Have not managed to use it to its full potential. Jobu wants to know. Demands this of Evelyn when she first encounters this version of her in the IRS building. Naturally, it’s very easy to succumb to this type of thinking, particularly when suffering from depression. Joy’s own internalized depression comes from wanting simple acceptance from her mother, most notably with regard to having a female partner named Becky (Tallie Medel). The fact that Evelyn has taken on the tradition of parental disapproval after not receiving acceptance from her father is, alas, a common trend in many families as the generations progress. But breaking the cycle is so often the key to relationship success between parent and child. A revelation Evelyn eventually comes to realize.
As for Waymond, sweet, docile Waymond, he explains to Evelyn in one universe that he fights in a different way—with love, kindness. So it is that, in the second act (called “Everywhere”), Evelyn chooses to tap into her attackers’ pain, determining what is truly ailing them (physically or emotionally), and then makes that pain go away. Being that most people are hurting especially because their pain goes unacknowledged by others too consumed with their own, Evelyn’s simple acts of kindness do disarm this rage within the people around her. She even manages to—in her Christ-like state—turn bullets into the very googly eyes Waymond places on laundry sacks to put a smile on customers’ faces (much to Evelyn’s annoyance).
A scene where Jobu and Evelyn are rocks in one of the dimensions that’s uninhabitable to humans (there are many, as Jobu notes) also incorporates the googly eyes. They become a symbol of love and compassion, manifested through the small gestures. Even when Jobu criticizes Evelyn for putting them on with, “You’re a rock. Just be a rock.” Evelyn responds, “There are no rules here.”
And, truth be told, “rules” of any kind are an illusion formed by governments to create the notion of being “civilized.” Everything Everywhere All At Once pokes fun at that idea in its own way with the incorporation of the IRS into the plotline (and yes, it would be quite satisfying to tell an IRS worker to just “shut up”). In addition to many other cinephile wet dream references ranging from the comical (Raccacoonie) to the serious (Wong Kar-wai). Indeed, the allusions in Everything Everywhere All At Once abound—and, incidentally, speak to a title of another recent book: Everything, All the Time, Everywhere. Written by Stuart Jeffries, the treatise, if you will, offers, among other insights, a history of how our desires being so seemingly fulfillable have rendered us into depressed dolts on the tit of the parlor walls that Bradbury prophesied. How we’re prisoners in the post-modern world to “the existential human tragedy of desire followed by disappointment followed by desire followed by disappointment”—which is being “exploited as never before.” Even Daniels, one could argue, are exploiting it with this hyper-meta genre that assures its viewers they’re quite intelligent and totally justified in loathing their mediocre existence. “Mediocrity” in our current capitalist setup being defined by a) not being rich and/or b) not being famous.
Jobu addresses this pattern as a trap to keep us all going. All that said, life bums most sentient people out. And everyone has a different way of coping with that reality. Some numb out on media, or food, or exercise, or alcohol. Some apply denial like a balm. There are so many different methods to mitigate the pain of existence (this, too, includes filmmaking). Trying to “understand” it is another one. When those who are “strong” enough to accept that Jobu Tupaki (and Beckett) is right—“nothing matters”—it’s also true that we keep trying to buy into “hope” to sustain us. “Hope” that so often gives way to the reality that the universe is indifferent. So it is that our lives chart like peaks and valleys based on our hopes pitted against the nadirs of how life simply is.
Nonetheless, Evelyn and Joy are finally willing to surrender to their version of a mediocre life. Take pleasure in it when they can. So, ultimately, Everything All At Once is still another “feel-good” movie designed to give us hope to keep going through the elaborate smokescreen of coming across as nihilistic.
