If the universe speaks in riddles and the key to a happy life is to decipher the meaning of the universe, then Everything Everywhere All at Once is the owner’s manual. Written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, before embarking on this inimitable journey to the many verses, I suggest you buckle up for safety.
Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) and Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) run a laundromat in California. Evelyn lives a life of stress and worry, running the laundromat, caring for her aging father, Gong Gong (James Hong), and rebellious daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and ignoring her husband, Waymond, all in an effort to stay sane and afloat.
Waymond thinks life should be experienced through random acts of kindness — he puts goggley eyes on all the bags of washed clothes — something Evelyn hates thinking it puerile, not because she’s a mean person, but because of her hyper-stressed condition. She’s either yelling at Waymond or ignoring him; she never laughs.
Their daughter Joy, aimless and disillusioned, has come out to her parents as gay, but Evelyn refuses to introduce Joy’s girlfriend Becky to Gong Gong and instead introduces Becky as Joy’s very good friend which angers Joy. Becky who is more like Waymond, let’s the slight pass unacknowledged.
There is an IRS audit, the auditor played by Jamie Lee Curtis who I assumed was wearing a fat suit, but who instead has renounced the beauty standards that women have been impossibly held to for so long and decided to just be herself — kudos, Jamie!
There is an Everything Bagel of Life — I’ve long suspected that an everything bagel might be the key to life, actually — and the world, left dangling on the precipice as it so often is these days, unless Evelyn does something to stop the great evil spreading across the many verses.
There is a lot of time travel.
There are so many laughs that you may need to watch it again to catch all the things you missed from laughing.
And there is so much wisdom traded in laughter that you will come away sated on a hundred different levels.
In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity, according to the old adage, attributable to both Sun Tzu and Albert Einstein, respectively, and in Everything Everywhere All at Once chaos permeates every scene to brilliant hilarity.
The most prophetic and useful moral of the movie comes from Evelyn’s husband(s) Waymond Wang when he is trying to recruit her to the cause, and it applies to each and every one of us no matter what we do, where we are, or where we are planning to go in this multiverse we call life:
Every rejection, every disappointment, has led you here to this moment. Don’t let anything distract you from it.
pam lazos — 8.12.22
Green Life Blue Water 
This sounds fab. I watched the trailer, and checked if we get it here.Yes, but I have to pay. The monthly fee for TV is already high, so I guess I’ll have to wait until I can get it or free. When did TV become such a racket?
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Ah, I dint know but seems like most everything’s a racket. 🤨🥸
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Right! Unfortunately life is not a game of tennis. xo
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😂🤣
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Hadn’t heard of — I love Yeoh!
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looking forward to watching this. Thank you, Pam 🙂
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Enjoy, Michele!
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I love Michelle Yeoh, she is such a seasoned actress. This movie sounds very interesting. Is it on any streaming platform?
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She’s awesome! I think both Amazon and Apple have it, D. Have fun!!😘♥️
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Funnily enough I was hoping to catch it this weekend but instead I’ve caught a summer bug from my son (I thought that happened when they went to nursery, not now he’s 32 and running his own business). So next week I will try and find a slot. Mind you, like you the concept of multiverses makes sense to me but the Textiliste tends to think I’m bonkers and offers me soup and a straight jacket when I get on a roll so she’s not my obvious companion.
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😂😂😂 Perhaps dog then?!
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It’s a thought, though if there any doorbells, we’re doomed. Every episode of Downton Abbey starts with the below stairs bell ringing: drove him potty. I cannot tell you the number of times I had to open the front door to show him no one was there…
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😂😂😂 – Apollo, our pooch, does the same thing when he hears other animals on TV. He runs around barking and looking for them.😎
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It belongs to my favourites! Thank you, Pam. Woman rocks! 👍🥰🤗💖
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As do you, Aladin!💕
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Howdy, Pam. I think this movie did well at the box office. Is its length justified, or do you think it should have been shortened?
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Nah, I thought it was great. I can see where you may think the action slowed, Neil (rocks? – although I loooved that scene) but for the most part I thought the screenplay wasted no time.
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Pam, how great that you were able to make sense of this movie. I got totally dizzy with all the time travel and lost the meaning of it all 😦
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That’s so funny you say that, Rose because we watched it with our friends, one of whom said he had no idea 🤷♂️ what was going on, yet to me it seemed so natural. I suspect it depends how firmly rooted one is in 3-D as opposed to buying into the notion that we are part of multi-universes all happening at once (because time is non-linear). Bottom line for me though is — what you put your attention on is what you get all day long — so kudos to us when we can manage not to be distracted!😘
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Such a wonderful movie!
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🙌🙌🙌
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Sounds epic Pam. Especially for the reasons you talk about at the end xxx
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You’ll love it, Shey. 😂😂😂
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Pam, this is absolutely one of my favorite films of the year. I like what you said about this being the “Owner’s Manual.” It is a wild ride indeed. Looking forward to a rewatch very soon!
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Bruce – it’s easily my fav this year!👏👏👏
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