Existentialism, the chaos of modern life and fingers made of hot dogs
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert tell Rachael Davis the simple message of their absurdist film
Modern life is overwhelming. In a world where anything is possible, where we can access all human knowledge at the tap of a screen, where we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, what is the point of anything at all?
This is the question that writing and directing duo Daniels – Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – attempt to answer in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The film sees Chinese American mother Evelyn Wang traverse multiple universes to save infinite versions of herself from being destroyed by an omnipresent villain. All while trying to file her taxes.
“We like to chase questions that we don’t know the answers to, and we use our films as therapy, as a way to process our ideas,” says Kwan of the film’s philosophical heart.
“It’s expensive therapy, but also lucrative therapy!” laughs Scheinert.
“Life has always been chaotic, confusing, but we’ve never been so close to it,” Kwan adds. “The internet is in our pockets and we’re touching infinity every day. Our peasized lizard brains weren’t built to process all of that.
“So this film was us saying: ‘Let’s try to use sci-fi and the multiverse to understand that’.”
Everything Everywhere All At Once opens with Evelyn, played by Tomorrow Never Dies and Crazy Rich Asians star Michelle Yeoh, frantically trying to prepare her familyowned laundromat’s tax documents ahead of an audit by the IRS.
She’s stressed: her elderly father Gong Gong (James Hong) is demanding her attention and her cooking, her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), seeking a divorce, is on the receiving end of her exasperated requests and her daughter Joy, played by Stephanie Hsu, is trying to get her to accept her girlfriend Becky.
As the couple and Gong Gong are in the elevator on their way to meet IRS agent Deirdre, played by double Golden Globe winner Jamie Lee Curtis, Waymond’s personality transforms. His body has been taken over by Alpha Waymond, a version of himself from parallel universe “the Alphaverse”, who explains to Evelyn the existence of multiverses, each with their own version of herself and everyone she knows and loves.
Evelyn must use “versejumping” technology to move between the universes, accessing the skills, memories and bodies of her parallel counterparts to take on elusive villain Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu) who is at risk of destroying the entire multiverse – and herself.
It’s a wonderfully ridiculous concept, but Kwan and Scheinert are no strangers to absurdism. Their 2016 debut Swiss Army Man, starring Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe, is about a man who, marooned on an island, befriends a flatulent corpse and uses it as a sort of multitool to go on an adventure and discover a new perspective on life.
This time, however, there is a more philosophical agenda to their playful absurdity, as they contemplate the purpose of human existence, the modern family dynamic and the nihilism of youth.
● Everything Everywhere All At Once is in UK cinemas now