Written by Fiola Odusote

Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, 2022), is a film that centres around Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), a middle-aged Chinese woman, who is unhappy with her lot in life. A struggling laundromat and piling taxes cause Evelyn to take out her stress on both her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), and her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). At a time in Evelyn’s life where things seem to be heading south’ new purpose rears its head and she’s presented with the opportunity to save the multiverse from a great evil. Over the course of the film, Evelyn discovers universes where she’s achieved a variety of great feats, but despite alluring temptations, Evelyn chooses to embrace her current reality and makes peace with loving her imperfect family in spite of their flaws. Being positive and making the most out of your current situation are the great lessons of the film; and the evil of the story is only able to be defeated when Evelyn is finally able to communicate to her daughter how much she loves her. 

The film features numerous moments of comedy throughout its runtime and the humour within the film is also what helps support and create some of the most emotional scenes in the movie. During the film, Evelyn accidently transports herself into a multiverse where humans have hotdogs for fingers. The initial moment is purely comedic as Evelyn finds herself unable to fight Jobu Tapaki due to losing the ability to control her hands properly. Towards the end of the film, we revisit this place in the multiverse as Evelyn communicates to Tupaki, in an earnest moment, that in a place where you have hotdogs for fingers you learn to become very good with your feet. Evelyn says this during the climax of the film, and this effectively communicates how in the most stupid and hopeless situations, a brighter outlook can always be found. 

Kwan and Scheinert’s film, despite its multiversal stakes, centres around the relationship between the members of the Wang family. The supposed threat on the multiverse is a plot device that forces Evelyn to question the role she has played in causing her daughter’s feelings of inadequacy. And Evelyn is also forced to reckon with how her own upbringing may have impacted how she raised her daughter. Generational Trauma is a very prevalent theme present within the movie and it is only towards the end of the film that Evelyn is able to confront her own father for how he’d treated her. In facing her own demons, Evelyn is able to free herself enough to embrace her own daughter and hold her back from killing herself. And by communicating how she felt, Evelyn is met with the support of Waymond, and her own father, who help her hold back Tupaki/Joy from ending their life. This moment of the film visually communicates to the audience that the Wang family is now finally embracing each other and are attempting to correct their mistakes. This moment also successfully showcases how a multiverse story can emotively and successfully tackle the topic of generational trauma.