In an era of non-stop superhero movies, A24’s take on a female heroine saving the world — or worlds — is refreshing. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once follows Evelyn , a Chinese owner of a laundromat with familial and financial woes who is plunged into parallel universes of madness by Jobu Tobaki, an evil version of her daughter, Joy .
The concept of an infinite number of universes with multiple possibilities that exist in parallel to our own is not new. The film’s directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — known as The Daniels — tells the classic sci-fi story of the multiverse that transcends cultures and tropes by asking the question, “How can one pay attention to the ones we love when the universe is trying to take that attention away from them?” The Daniels’ approach to this classic plot is smart, witty and philosophically extreme.
The content is overwrought and underthought. Lots of sci-fi action films about big ideas are undone by a basic structural problem — that big ideas can’t be expressed, let alone absorbed, during small breaks between outbreaks of absurd violence. Getting one’s head around the implications of the existence of countless universes is hard enough at the best of times. It’s impossible if you’re having your senses pulverised every two minutes.