While the independent sci-fi film of the year collected awards from prestigious ceremonies like SAG, BAFTA, Golden Globes, and recently the Oscars, it’s about time to take a closer look at this ground-breaking production.
How do they approach the concepts like the true nature of things, the reason for being, struggle with nothingness, and infinite realities in the plot? On top of that, how do they manage to do it through the story of a Chinese-immigrant woman with her daily life issues?
In the beginning, we glimpse our protagonist’s everyday work routine and complicated relationships with her family. There is a laundromat, a pile of receipts scattered on a table and an interrupted conversation worth stressing. As it is seen, Evelyn is a bit of an overwhelming character who usually makes it harder to communicate with her hopeful husband Waymond and especially her depressive daughter named "Joy."
Evelyn Wang goes through a lean patch, fixed upon regrets from the past and she thinks her life is a mess. It must be a familiar feeling for all of us, to ponder on the choices we made and complain about the missing opportunities. We live in a cruel world full of countless possibilities that are yet to come. But, there is not enough time to experience all of them and there is no way to reach absolute satisfaction. Being disappointed in loose ends and broken dreams seems inevitable. Even so, there is always a chance to find happiness and inner peace by accomplishing our goals, enjoying the little things, or appreciating random moments with our loved ones.
Although this fact brings some kind of relief, what-if scenarios are still able to arouse our interest. Probably we all would like to know the possible outcomes of our different decisions. Whether she wants it or not, Evelyn has to embark on a journey through the parallel universes and "becomes" the alternate versions of herself. Just a while ago, her only trouble was dealing with domestic matters and confronting tax affairs, but now she is commissioned to save the entire multiverse from unlimited madness.
It only stands to reason, this experimental film was one of the biggest surprises of the last year. It did not just give a new impulse to the genre, but it also became the highest-grossing movie of A24, a renowned film production company that is famous for arthouse films like "The Witch," "Midsommar," "Uncut Gems" and "Ex Machina."
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, both directors and writers of the movie, set out their unique style of storytelling and innovative technics of cinematography. As you would appreciate, bringing a new perspective into interdimensional interactions might be a challenging task. Nevertheless, the Daniels performed high creativity to represent the bizarre nature of chaos in a humorous way.
Speaking of high creativity, "Everything Everywhere" has a variable visual language that deserves special attention. Maybe you presumed that illustrating the depth and diversity of the multiverse must have cost the earth and required plenty of visual effects (VFX) artists. But surprisingly, the VFX team consisted of only seven people who had learned effects from tutorials on YouTube.
Daniels assembled a small group of filmmaker friends for this position and all of them worked wonders with low-budget tricks. The crew preferred to use a minimal amount of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and mostly practical effects such as puppets, prosthetics, LED lights and matte paintings while shooting. They built makeshift studios for the scenes that needed multiple settings and then combined the locations in editing. Besides, they used stock footage, free blenders and pre-rendered elements during post-production.
Their way of processing visual effects seems to have a retro style in a sense, but it also seems renovative and highly acclaimed, especially in the era of overused CGI effects.
Throughout the storyline, Evelyn dips into a wide array of realities. While some of those settings have longer screen times, the rest of them appear just in a blink. However, every scene from the other dimensions has been designed elaborately utilizing different color palettes, shutter angles, and lens choices. And here’s a fun fact, some of these scenes make references to famous films like "2001: A Space Oddysey," "In The Mood For Love," "Carol," and even a Pixar classic, "Ratatouille."
The quality shows itself in choreographies as well. Martial arts play an essential role in most of the parts. Luckily, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan are talented actors who have experience in this respect. So, they mostly did their own stunts in the fighting scenes. Their absurd yet epic kung fu sequences are worth watching over and over again.
By the way, it would be a shame not to mention the triumphs of the cast including Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan with Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The whole crew already started to gain awards in return for their huge success. Yeoh and Quan gave inspirational speeches at prize-giving ceremonies and raised Asian communities’ hopes to have a bigger part in the cinema industry.
It’s no wonder that "Everything Everywhere All At Once" dominated the major categories such as best picture, best actress, best director and the rest at the 95th Oscar. The crew won seven awards out of their 11 nominations. Michelle Yeoh made history as the first Asian woman to take home the best leading actress award, and in the meantime, Ke Huy Quan touched guests for being the best actor in a supporting role with his comeback after over 20 years.
Most audiences have yearned for mind-bending science fiction and thought-provoking plotlines instead of popcorn films. The philosophical basis of a script is as crucial as the story arc itself and the proper use of thematization can be useful to express the main points.
"Everything Everywhere All At Once" might not be a hard sci-fi film, but that’s not the case anyway. The multiverse has been used as a metaphor to focus on humane reactions against cosmic obscurity and the absurdity of being. Even the villain occurs as the embodiment of an existential crisis. Somewhere along the line, our heroine embraces a philosophical movement called "Optimistic Nihilism," which stands for the unbearable lightness of insignificance.
Evelyn realizes that people attribute too much meaning to their regrets, failures, and anxieties. But in an ultimate macrocosm where every creature counted as small details, none of these matter at all. She is started to shrink away from her whole entity, attracted to the sweet silence of the void.
However, Evelyn still remembers the things she values, her people. She is ready to do whatever it takes to save them, even if means living every moment and everywhere at the same time.
Even though her character arc is the central point during the course of events, she is not the only one with impressive personality traits that support the film's subtext. Her husband Waymond might seem too naive and childish, or even pushover in the earlier stages. But afterward, his peaceful nature becomes a milestone in the conflict. Waymond Wang makes a particular impression as a beta male who rejects toxic masculinity to stand upon his empathy and kindness. He defines his view of life as a strategy for survival in his own words. One has to admit that "the power of love and friendship saves the day" became an old chestnut a long time ago.
But yet, this cliche fits right in the climax to emphasize one of the main ideas of the movie: Chaos can’t be defeated by causing more chaos, coming together with each other might be the only way to go against any crisis. Maybe all of us should learn to fight like Waymond, and see the world from his aspect.
To cut a long story short, "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is a blending mix of absurdism, existentialism, nihilism and everything between them. This surreal quest offers a fun ride with the search for meaning along the multiverse. And finally, it is a good reminder that achieving true bliss might be possible against the chances of adapting ourselves to this chaotic reality we live in.
As Waymond says, with every passing moment every one of us fears we might have missed our chance to make something of our lives, but every rejection and every disappointment has led us here, to this moment.
Don’t let anything distract you from it.
