EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
Depth and taxes
RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 139 minutes
Directors Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Cast Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan,
Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis
A crazed music video where a man smashes through an apartment building; a touching buddy comedy in which Paul Dano bonds with a farting corpse. If the prior work of directing duo Daniels – aka Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – vibrates on the same wavelength as your brain, then chances are you’ve been keenly anticipating their latest work. And it doesn’t disappoint on any front: the weird, the funny and the heartfelt elements that punctuate their projects are all present and correct here, and in even more impressive form.
Michelle Yeoh, handed a role that truly uses her abilities to the full, is Evelyn Wang, a laundromat owner lodged in a nightmare audit with tax official Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis, dowdy and officious). She’s also worried that her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu, a ball of late-teens heartache and frustration) can’t connect with her father (screen legend James Hong) over Joy’s life choices. Then there’s husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan of Temple Of Doom fame, who proves here that he’s been just as criminally underutilised as Yeoh), who’s planning to divorce Evelyn just to get her attention. When he’s taken over by a multiverse version of himself to contact Evelyn and convince her to fight a threat that crosses dimensions, all manner of strangeness kicks in. How strange? Try alt-evelyn in a loving relationship with Deirdre in a parallel universe where humans have sausages for hands.
There are incredibly wellchoreographed martial arts scenes, a nod to the work of Wong Kar-wai, a scene simply featuring rocks that looks to make you sob and more versions of the main characters than the Peter Parkers of Into The Spider-verse and No Way Home combined.
Which is not to say it’s simply wacky for wackiness’ sake: Everything Everywhere has its mind on inter-generational trauma, depression, loneliness, reconnecting with loved ones and more. It might be influenced by the likes of The Matrix, The One and even, at points, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, but it’s no lazy genre pudding, whisking all this into a fresh-feeling cocktail of highenergy action, emotional resonance and possibly the funniest riff on a Pixar movie.
It’s rare to have a film that works on so many levels, but Everything Everywhere is a head trip that also possesses a brain.
Jackie Chan was the original thought for the lead, but the role was then re-written for his Police Story 3 co-star Yeoh.