REVIEW: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Stepping out of the theater after watching this movie was something else. It was a fresh take on existential movies and featured a lot of contemporary art. It’s hard to describe what Everything Everywhere All at Once is about because… it is about a lot of things. It was about family, the meaninglessness of life, adulthood, regrets, people with sausage fingers, and much more.

This movie was a sophisticated one. It delivered strong messages in a more ‘universal’ way. By that I mean, existential movies usually fall into contemplative, somber genres like film noir and the others but Everything Everywhere All at Once delivers these more complex thoughts about human existence through a family comedy of sorts. 

It is funny, it is emotional, it gives serious takeaways without taking itself too seriously and it does that through a careful display of techniques. This movie capitalizes on a lot of pop art and editing. It does not rely on a lot of cliches and uses unique art styles to deliver difficult to portray feelings like the kind a sci-fi movie about metaverses deals with. 

I believe what sets this movie, a sci-fi about metaverse, apart from other sci-fi metaverse movies is how wholesome it is. Sci-fi movies tend to be very plot-driven. The question they tackle is usually so many magnitudes above everyday life problems that they enter a league of their own where you can’t relate to the movie. It becomes more of an action movie at times. But Everything Everywhere All at Once takes a more delicate approach. 

The choice of a middle-aged Asian immigrant parent in America as a protagonist is strong enough to begin with. Her problems are realistic and she isn’t immediately thrown into the task of saving the world. She works through problems in human ways and overcomes problems like having a better relationship with her queer teen daughter. It’s a really fresh take on sci-fi and what all movies like this can offer. At times the warm family-oriented message can hold the movie back by becoming a little preachy but it is overall a good subversion of the genre. 

I loved this movie because of its creativity and how funny it was. It is the funniest sci-fi movie I’ve ever seen and I highly recommend everyone watches it to get a taste of what cool movies of our time look like!