“Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” takes universal human struggles and flips them into literal universes. The movie, released in late March, follows an overburdened Chinese immigrant mother, wife, and laundromat owner Evelyn Quang as she struggles to keep a meaningful relationship with her daughter. But it also follows her life as a Kung Fu master. And chef. And rock. And a lesbian with hot dogs for fingers–i.e, the multiverse is exposed to her, and Evelyn becomes an unlikely heroine battling forces of indifference. With a newfound ability to “verse jump,” the battle against an “evil” attacking the multiverse begins. And what is that evil than none other than a giant everything bagel. 

The film really is everything: a sci-fi, comedy, drama and romance flick. A maximalist in plot and visuals, The Daniels–Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert–directed the film over six years. “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” sends viewers into an absurd, empirical voyage. Protagonist Evelyn Quang, played by Michelle Yeoh, puts on a powerful representation of an overworked mother straining to hold her family together, while also digging into generational trauma and the age-old mother-daughter conflict trope.

Alongside Yeoh, actors like Ke Huy Quan (best known for his role as Data in the 1985 classic “The Goonies”), Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis, oddly enough, perfectly trance viewers into the plot. Box office records speak for themselves–a new record for A24 of $52.26m, beating the 2019 award-winning “Uncut Gems.”

The best thing about “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” is the way it finds reason in the absurdity. A 100% probability of everything happening, with infinite versions of yourself trekking through time. So what’s the difference if one version of yourself fails, or dies? You don’t matter. But the movie takes that very notion and flips it around. Because nothing matters, everything matters. It’s the little things that make life worth living. 

An unexpected, insane movie to kick off a new year in cinema. 

Art by Kylie Myers