Adam Sobel Week 7 - "Everything Everywhere All at Once" By Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinhart

    This summer, my friend convinced me to watch the movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once," a fantastic movie discussing the multiverse, the choices we make, family roles, and how people have an impact on each other's lives. This movie had a lot of the qualities that I believe make up a great film like an interesting plot line, captivating action sequences, and open discussions and messages about difficult issues. It does have some critiques that I feel are fair, but is still an overall amazing movie.

    This movie follows the path (or, more accurately, paths) of a Chinese-American immigrant, Evelyn Quan Wang, making a living with her family through a laundromat. I say "paths" because, throughout the movie, they reveal more and more parallel universes where Evelyn has more or less successful lives.

    For those that don't know, the parallel universe theory is that every time a decision or change could be made (what you want to eat, where you choose to work, etc.), the universe is split into equal probabilities where any of the possible options can happen. Since there are many possible ways that decisions can be made or outcomes can be produced, there are therefore many parallel universes.

    Evelyn spends the movie trying to save her daughter from another universe who is also the antagonist in the movie, but she has difficulty trying to connect with her. She is also trying to balance saving her marriage, her business, and her sick father without dealing with any one problem at a time. Only in the end, when she finally realizes why she loves her husband and his silly jokes, why she moved to America to start her business, and why she had a child to love and nurture no matter what, she chooses to calm down, face her problems, and save her daughter. The uplifting speeches from her husband, Waymond, and watching them overcome the heart-wrenching emotional struggles that her and her daughter are dealing with will make you cry nearly every time, just as it did to me the two times I watched the movie.

    However, as I said in the beginning, the movie does have some elements that I don't love. The exposition is incredibly long and it takes about 1/3 of the movie for them to fully explain what is going on and what the motivations for everyone are. The directors did this because there are many things to unpack within the movie due to the many parallel universes that they are dealing with. I spent a lot of time staring at my screen confused the first time I watched the movie, but, by the end of the movie, I was creating all the connections and realizing the intricacies the directors set up, so I still don't think this bad design affects the movie too negatively.

    I highly recommend that anyone with the time to watch this movie does because it perfectly demonstrates what I feel is a great film with all the necessary elements to leave an impact on your audience. It felt very emotional and confusing at times, but once every piece was put together I realized the full potential that this movie demonstrated and I walked away satisfied and entertained from an amazing movie.


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Comments

  1. BenNovember 15, 2022 at 5:32 PM

    I'm very jealous. I've wanted to see this movie since before it came out, and I still haven't had a chance to watch it. I found the trailer to be compelling because of the seeming chaos it presents. The movie appears to combine drama with sci-fi, a winning combination, which seems to be confirmed by your review. Can't wait to see it!

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