If you have followed my Oscars series, you’ll see that there have been any number of unforgiveable snubs or misses by The Academy when it comes to Asian cinema – South Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong and beyond, with Chinese Americans providing an impossible to number amount of valuable cinematic moments over the decades. Everything Everywhere All At Once seems, a cynic might say, like a way to balance the scales of history’s mistakes, such was its success at The Oscars. Setting all of that aside – is it any good?
Technically…. sure? It’s certainly a love letter of sorts, to Cinema first and foremost, but also to Chinese American culture. There’s a lot of visual and narrative flair, and it’s always interesting when a film like this is shoved into the limelight because it’s at once anti-Hollywood normalcy, but also ticks a lot of boxes for what Hollywood can be. In short – it’s a weird-ass movie, even for someone like me who likes weird-ass movies. It doesn’t feel like a film which will stand the test of time, nor does it feel like a film which we’ll look back on decades, or even mere years to come and say ‘yeah, that was the best choice to win all those Oscars’. In the moment, sure, and it’s great that the genre and the culture have finally seen some representation by the upper echelons… but it’s not anywhere near the same level of film as some of the Chinese or Hong Kong movies from the past which deserved as much praise. If I can give an ill-advised, but perhaps apt multi-universal comparison – imagine a world where Chinese Americans were the main drivers of content from the start of American Cinema – Chinese actors, writers, directors are at the top of the US Box Office, are the winners of all the awards, but Caucasian guys and gals continue to make niche films for a niche audience, even though those films are much more successful outside of the US. Flash-forward a hundred years or so to the present day, and Three Thousand Years Of Longing is heralded as a landmark in ‘White Cinema’, winning all the Oscars. I don’t know man, something doesn’t sit right with me.
It’s not a bad movie by any stretch – as the name suggests, it’s a little bit of everything, squished together with some philosophical nods thrown in for good measure. It’s funny (in parts), it’s sort of emotional (in parts), and it has some decent performances. On the action front, it doesn’t compete with any of the films it lampoons, nor does it come close to what Michelle was doing in the 80s and 90s. Jamie Lee Curtis is clearly having fun, but she’s even more fun in Scream Queens where she seems to be drawing some inspiration from, and we know she’s been wonderfully versatile for decades.
While most of the ideas in the movie are borrowed, and everyone watching and making the film understands that they’re borrowed, it’s done with such visual flair and epileptic directing, that you give in to the overwhelming nature it pushes on you, and just go with it. It’s like a stand-up comedy routine by a motormouth comic – there’s a hundred jokes every minute, and while 80% of them don’t stick, enough of it does that you don’t have time to notice all the junk.
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once operates in a similar world to Ready Player One, but in a more meta way. It’s much longer than it needs to be, there’s a wildly unnecessary amount of repetition throughout, and I fear that over time the good qualities of the film will be overshadowed by people coming to the realization that it was over-hyped and over-sold. It should have been a fun, interesting indie film, rather than the smash it became, and people will look back on it, wonder what the hell everyone was thinking, and push back against it more than is deserved.
Case in point – I’ve got to the end of this review and haven’t really talked about what the film is about, plot-wise or other-wise. In the end, I’m not sure it really matters. Is it abut family? Is it about growing up, regardless of age? Is it about finding your place, your purpose? Is it about the struggle of a marginalised group in an increasingly insane world? Or is it just an excuse to put these people and ideas up on screen and say ‘hey, we love all of this stuff, and we hope you do too?’
Let us know what you think of Everything, Everywhere, All At Once in the comments!
The Spac Hole 
I love this film. Initially you are led to believe that this is a sort of time travelling/alt. universes romp. But actually, what it is at its core, is an analysis of a mother/daughter relationship. It’s about dealing with change, being brave and fearless, breaking boundaries, growing up, letting go and most importantly, acceptance and love. It never fails to make me cry and I love it for its ability to do that whilst being weird and action and noodle fingers.
Indeed. I wonder if that message gets lost though, due to all of the other ‘stuff’, the energy, the directing etc. I think that many who stick with it, like you, will fall for it completely, but many will end up frustrated long before then.
Great point. It does suffer a bit from a lack of identity from the start, the genre jumps and so forth, but then, I guess, its narrative is literal to the film title!