Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” was released on Mar 11, 2022 in the South by Southwest film festival and came to the big screen in United States theaters on Mar 25, 2022. Labeled as a Sci-Fi/Adventure film, the movie features Michelle Yeoh, who plays the protagonist Evelyn Quan-Wang, as she travels through time and dimension to restore reality back to its original balance. 

The film has gained high reviews on IMDb, a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an 82% rating on Metacritic.

First and foremost, this movie is absurdism at its finest. The plot twists are bizarre and overly comical, and it takes unimaginable scenarios and incorporates them so well that it doesn’t feel odd. For example, in one universe, humans have hot-dogs for fingers and bleed cheese sauce and ketchup. Some of the scenarios are, however, very violent. About every 10 minutes or so something gory happens on screen that is very brutal, enough to make someone wince or turn away. This film is nowhere near as violent as some other shows like “Squid Game” or “Hunger Games,” but still pretty aggressive. 

The jobs that Yeoh works are also all very different depending on the universe she’s in. In one world she spins signs at a pizza place, in a different world, she’s a multi-talented karate-prodigy movie star. The only similarity between the jobs are that they are all different versions of who she could have been.

Also, the ways that Yeoh accesses different universes is different from other methods movie studios have used for multidimensional travel, like opening portals or using a key for a specific door. Instead of doing something like going through a portal or having to focus really hard to access different universes, the characters must fulfill a wacky prompt like getting paper cuts in between all four fingers or rubbing hand-sanitizer on their eyes, which are not actions that someone would typically do and is the core of absurdism.

Along with the scenarios that characters find themselves in, the soundtrack is just as wacky. It’s composed of mainly classical music either sped up or slowed down and intermittently paused and played throughout the course of an action scene, which is quite often. The only time there is a song that is not classical is when they play the popular TikTok audio and the song “Sucked into a bagel.” This common sound catapults the movie from the rising action into the heart of the story. 

The costumes and makeup for this movie, depending on the setting, are either ordinary clothes like knit sweaters and jeans with sneakers or they’re gorgeous,. For example, in one universe Yeoh is a moviestar attending the premier for her new movie, and wears a beautiful floor-length a-line gown. Besides that, all of the extraordinary fashion is reserved for the antagonist in the movie Jobu Tupaki, played by Stephanie Hsu. Everything from “Euphoria”-esque makeup for her bagel-outfit to the Picasso face paint she wears in the final scenes, her outfits go all out in terms of extravagance. In particular, the costume that accompanies her Picasso look is a mishmash of textures, colors and shapes that make up a suit. 

Along with the costumes, the architecture is also gorgeous. The bagel-temple is a marvelous work of architecture that consists of a gothic style church with a white monochromatic color scheme with high ceilings and sweeping arches that houses the evil creation that Tupaki made, an everything bagel. The architecture for the theater that Yeoh sees her movie premier in is also fabulous, and very similar to how the inside of an opera-house looks with a neoclassical style decorated with a red carpet throughout the building, a grand staircase, and gold-embellishments everywhere the eye can see. Although there is no outside architecture for this one, the interior design of the house that Yeoh lives in in one universe is very aesthetically pleasing. It’s full of various shades of pink and blush, although nothing is very vibrant, and has subtle gold and white details.

When it comes to emotions, this movie has no problem with doing both lighthearted and funny or more serious, and sad, scenes. People on TikTok have recorded videos of themselves walking out of the showing for the movie once it is finished, and they’re all either crying or smiling and exclaiming how good the movie is. 

Although the movie is filled with comedic moments, the last half an hour is very sad, as the movie comes to a close and Tupaki states that she’s tired and she just wants her life to end because of how much of the multiverse she’s seen, and how she feels like she’s everywhere at once. Eventually the movie ends on a happier note, although it is a bit tearful. 

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” is definitely one movie you should watch, whether that means in theaters or waiting a few months so you can rent it or watch it on a streaming service. It’s worth the hype it’s been given and can definitely be watched again and again without getting bored.