The Big Picture

  • Action movie fans are conditioned to expect a standardized narrative trajectory with battles leading to a climactic finale.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once blends martial arts action with emotional family drama for a unique genre experience.
  • The film prioritizes human connections and self-realization over flashy action sequences, delivering a stirring, affecting story.

Depending on where you look, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a science-fiction movie, a fantasy-comedy, a dramedy, a darkly comic family adventure. None of these descriptors alone would supply an accurate expectation for the film unless it was alongside its designation as an action movie. Be it in the medium of film or the sandboxes of video games, fans of action-oriented media have been groomed to expect an almost standardized narrative trajectory – our hero will spend some time getting their bearings before engaging in a series of battles, culminating in a consummate Boss Battle. We’re conditioned to not over-invest in whatever fight or chase scene punctuates the first act, nor whatever twist, situational nadir, or exploded building animates the second. We know that the severity of coolness in each of these moments should be considered a mere appetizer for the showstopping awesomeness the creative team has reserved for the finale.

Everything Everywhere All at Once Black and White Poster
Everything Everywhere All at Once
R
Adventure
Comedy

A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.

Release Date
March 25, 2022
Cast
Jenny Slate , Michelle Yeoh , jamie lee curtis , Ke Huy Quan
Runtime
139 minutes

Even if that’s not the creative direction the team had in mind. If they prefer the second act to be where artistic flags are best planted or think tour-de-force flourishes are best served along with opening credits, they will be judged for how well they ring that last bell, fair or not. For some franchises, their action-picture identities are wrapped up in those climaxes. The Terminator franchise will die on a hill of smoldering industrial wreckage. A Star Wars movie will more likely than not end on a battle involving many ships. Even if audiences might want something new for an action movie ending, assuming they are emotionally connected to the same big finale might be a safer bet.

It’s not a pitfall of franchise filmmaking, as much as a feature of genre filmmaking. An indispensable feature of the action genre seems to be that video game-like escalation in enemy “difficulty.” Across installments, sure, but also simply genre-wide. It’s a friendly competition of form, as much as it’s a competition for audience dollars. If Fast and Furious is going to swing a muscle car on a grappling hook, then Mission Impossible is going to hang its star upside down from an airborne plane. Everything Everywhere All at Once moves throughout like it’s limbering up for this kind of business-as-usual competition, eager to throw its hat in the ring of legendary, climactic spectacles, or martial arts movie climaxes.

What Is 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' About?

Evelyn protecting Joy and Waymond in Everything Everywhere All at Once
Image via A24

The movie starts with Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) and Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan) showing us the bickering, pre-divorce stagnation of their lives, including running a business under audit by the IRS, hosting a father/in-law unimpressed with Evelyn’s life choices, and dealing with a daughter aching with all of her being to be seen for who she is and not who they want her to be. This is an opening run of well-executed, comedy-drama beats that feel honest, but the audience is primed for this to be a setup for the action, which, technically, it is. But, that’s just not all it is. The story engines start really humming when, at the IRS office, Evelyn is contacted by the Alpha Waymond of another universe—a pivotal universe—who informs her that war across all universes is underway, and she must not only take part but lead the charge.

Therefore, the movie really feels like it’s kicking off when a group of security guards—galvanized by a reckless misunderstanding—descend on Evelyn at that very office, and Alpha Waymond snaps into fanny-pack fisticuffs, a balletic exhibition that provides us with our first look at the style of fight scene the directors Daniels have in store. It’s all shot frankly, without overly frenetic editing, and this coherent display of physicality is as exhilarating as it is ridiculous. From then, it’s on. Scenes of world-building, mind-bending, multi-verse exposition tag in and out with scenes of inventive action that level up the danger and character implications every time. The more Evelyn learns about the versions of herself from other worlds — each of them more self-actualized than herself, for better or worse — the heavier the weight of her own disappointment at her life choices. Every fight with butt-plug-powered henchmen and Jamie Lee Curtis’ aggressive IRS inspector Deirdre feels like Evelyn fighting with herself.

Each fight sees characters slightly reimagined, sees an uptick in enemy numbers; each a barrier to be toppled before we can shift to the next location, the next set-piece, or world. Once the primary antagonist, Jobu Tupaki, is introduced, the existentialism of the material and its visual presentation gets wilder, particularly in the second act. Jobu is bored, vengeful, and cruel. She is a variant of Evelyn’s daughter Joy, a daughter dragged into disappointed depression and self-hostility, fueled by her mother’s—every version of her mother’s—inability to accept her sexuality and her identity. The Daniels build to such a gonzo crescendo of deconstructionist mayhem that, by the third act, the audience is ready for their version of a Kill Bill, Crazy 88 style melee, or a “burly brawl” like The Matrix Reloaded. But what The Daniels have in store is something more affecting and more stirring.

The Family Drama of 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' Is More Important Than the Action

It becomes clear that the human drama surrounding the bursts of action isn’t the potatoes but the meat. By the time we’ve reached the third act “fight”, the script has set up multiple obstacles to ultimate victory for our heroes, and all of them have emotional heft. Through her other selves, Evelyn is confronted with realities that hit like heavy revelations about herself. To know that her other talents would have paid off adds to this shock. To overcome it, she needs to come to terms with her choices in life. That is her Final Boss. She has sacrificed for her husband, more than she knew, and that husband wants to divorce her. Her daughter’s wrath is fueled in part by the acceptance Evelyn continues to withhold. Joy’s foot soldiers are anonymous people deployed as weapons, deactivated only by being given something they truly need, no matter how obscure. Help with their stiff neck or the scent of their wife’s perfume.

These are the blows Evelyn must land; plus the connections she must make with her husband, Deirdre, and Joy, and the forgiveness she must reserve for herself. These are ingredients used to cook up our action movie climax. Instead of jumping from scenes of multiple protagonists in multiple locations, engaging in very expensive battles on multiple fronts, we have Evelyn, being vulnerable with the people she loves. Being emotionally generous to herself, while engaging in some of the big screen’s best martial arts photography in years.

The energy of the delivery makes the face-to-face dialogue moments—like Waymond's plea for kindness—truly affecting and epic scale. When Evelyn decides to “fight” her enemies with some of Waymond’s kindness, it is a gauntlet being laid down. It is a reminder that action film has different schools too, different leagues, and there is value in making the dramatic elements feel just as labored over as the cinematic spectacle that drew us in.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is now available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix