It’s Not False Advertising

There is no false advertising with the title of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” It’s exactly what it says on the tin. There is not a second of downtime to be found within a non-stop parade of vibrant colors, kinetic action set pieces and absurd sight gags.

Like Jackson Pollock’s action painting, Daniels, the directing team made up of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, metaphorically drips various assorted tones, filmmaking styles and pop culture references, not to mention head spinning and surreal metaphysics, onto the canvas to see what sticks. Luckily, most of it does.

Wrapped up in its breathless, giddy anarchy, reminiscent of a live-action version of anime or a Douglas Adams novel, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” poses a question that most have asked themselves — “What if my life would be better if I made a different decision?” Underneath the mania, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is a tale of dashed hopes and dreams, broken promises and rocky familial relationships.

It’s Truly Everything Everywhere All at Once

Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn, a weary Chinese American immigrant who lives above the laundromat that she operates with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), a sweet, but nebbishy man.

Evelyn’s relationship with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is strained and frosty. She is also having to take the role of caretaker for her aging, disapproving father (James Hong).

As if the family problems and an IRS audit weren’t enough stress, Evelyn learns that she is the only one who can save the multiverse from the villainous Jobu Tupaki. In order to do so, she must summon the skills of an infinite number of Evelyns across the multiverse. This allows for her to get a glimpse of different ways her life could have gone, the roads not taken.

She is a superstar actress in a breathtaking sequence paying homage to Wong-Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” a chef in a riff on “Ratatouille,” living in a world where everyone has hot dogs instead of fingers, a piñata and a rock. The leaps into a different multiverse are done through doing something bizarre such as eating a stick of chapstick or snorting a housefly. Does this make any sense? To watch “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is to watch the Daniels’ imagination run away with them. It is bombastic, messy, exhilarating, joyous and exhausting.

Grounded By Wonderful Performances

What keeps the movie from getting lost in its sprawling, maximalist conceit is the emotional weight provided by the surprisingly melancholy and grounded performances of Yeoh and Quan.

Yeoh finds the core of truth in every single scene, even ones where that isn’t necessarily on the page, and plays each one of the multiverse Evelyns in slyly distinct ways. She makes the most complicated piece of action choreography look spontaneous and stupidly easy.

Quan, whom you might recognize from “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “The Goonies,” gives a beautiful and funny performance as a partner who is not as guileless as he might appear.

Hsu bites into her role with a delightful relish. Every single person in the movie, from Yeoh down to an extra, knows precisely the type of movie that they are in, and that’s saying a tremendous lot.

No movie with this one’s premise and grandiose ambitions could ever be perfect, and its very insistence on boundless possibilities makes me unable and unwilling to land on a solid position. It’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

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@abovemegan