Posted by A woman tries to do her taxes.
Life has been a little on the hectic side recently. Being a parent can sometimes feel like having another job, though I stress it’s all worth it. After a particularly hectic day I decided to relax in the evening with a trip to the cinema to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once. Relaxing is not the term I would associate with this movie. I walked out the screening with my mind feeling somewhat like this…
Am I complaining? No. I am not. Because I LOVED this movie.
I’ve sat here for the last 5 minutes not knowing where to even begin. I really can’t summarise the experience of watching this movie outside the gif I used above.
I’ll start with humour. This movie is hilarious. I don’t think I’ve laughed this much at a movie screening in the last year of having an unlimited card. It’s not even that there were lots of jokes, it’s just the pure randomness of some scenes. And yes, I still attended this showing on my own, so I was the creepy loner laughing to himself in a screening.
Given the last movie I went to watch at the cinemas was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it was interesting seeing how the two movies approached the multiverse so differently. I have to say, Everything Everywhere All at Once did a much better job in showing the madness and chaotic nature of the multiverse. If anything, this makes Doctor Strange’s movie look a little limited in comparison. I feel Marvel has been teasing the multiverse for so long with this phase of their movies without opening the multiverse as I expected them to. This movie gives more of a pay off all contained within a single movie than Marvel have managed across many movies and tv shows over the last year. Yes, I know Marvel are trying to build up to something. I still love the MCU movies. It just feels like a long time to have teased us with a multiverse.
At the heart of Everything Everywhere All at Once is a story about a fractured family. Anyone that has been reading my reviews knows I’m a sucker when it comes to movies about parent-child relationships. And it’s no different here. I love the journey the Wang family go on together. I’m not going to say I cried, but there were some scenes that made me feel a little on the emotional side. But I kept it together.
The acting is on point here. Michelle Yeoh really adds different layers to a character that starts off as unlikeable. By the end you’re fully rooting for her – and all her different multiverse identities. And then there’s Ke Huy Quan, who I haven’t seen in a movie since he played Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Actually, I’m sure The Goonies was released after Temple of Doom – where Ke Huy Quan played Data – but it was Temple of Doom that I’ve seen more often. And despite it being almost 40 years ago, he kind of has the same vibe about him. I can’t really say what it is. He just does. So, take my word for it and move on!
Ultimately, this movie made me think about a multiverse more than anything else has managed recently. I spent a lot of my life questioning the choices I made and constantly got lost in the ‘what ifs’ of life. That all changed with the arrival of the OddDaughter – when I realised everything in life had to happen the way it did for me to have this perfect miniature version of myself. Life may be tough – but just know there’s good things waiting round the corner. Cliched, yes, but also true.
Verdict
Everything Everywhere All at Once is chaotic, weird, hilarious and I absolutely loved it. It’s so random it will blow the minds of many people.