‘The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind…’
The debate around comic book movies and their effect on the world of cinema is a tedious one, and it is one that I won’t be indulging in here. The only reason I mention it at all, is that Everything Everywhere All at Once is proof positive of what can happen if a studio trusts its filmmakers to tell an original story, and gives them the budget to do so. I love Sam Raimi as a director, so I don’t want to dunk on him too much, but the concept of the multiverse presented in this film has instantly rendered anything that Doctor Strange has up his mysterious sleeves utterly obsolete…
Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yoah) is the matriarch of a seemingly normal Chinese-American family. She bickers with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), despairs over her kind-hearted but buffoonish husband Waymond (Ke Hu Quan), and lives in fear of the judgemental glare of her father Gong Gong (James Hong). When the Wang family attend a vital meeting at the IRS with tax officer Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), all of their lives, in many different universes, will be changed forever.
From the mind of directing duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, and distributed by the always compelling studio A24, Everything Everywhere All At Once is pound for pound the best movie of the year. Visually stunning, imaginative in ways that I have never seen before, beautifully acted – this is a film that has it all. I often decry the length of modern day films, but I was utterly hooked throughout this mind-bending treatise on life and love, and it is a testament to Kwan and Scheinert, but also to the wonderful cast, that this radical gamble turned out so damn good. Each character plays multiple versions of themselves in a head mashing frenzy of a movie that stands as some kind of wild hybrid of The Matrix, Scott Pilgrim vs The World and Rick and Morty, whilst still being utterly unique. If you haven’t guessed already – I absolutely loved this movie.
As the credits rolled on Everything Everywhere All at Once, I was struck by that wonderful feeling that I had witnessed a film that would go down in cinematic history as a bona fide classic. I already can’t wait to watch it again.