Gigi Devlin ‘24
Jan 27, 2023
Everything Everywhere All at Once is the best movie of 2022. The film, follows a middle-aged Chinese American as she is transported into the multiverse while having to deal with taxes and familial problems in her own universe. It easily crept its way into my top 10 movies of all time.
Missing the film’s original theatrical run while at school, I lost track of it on my movie radar. When I returned home for summer break three months after its release, however, it was impossible for me to miss this movie. One of my closest friends had already seen it in theaters 5 times over the past months and raved about it constantly. When I found out it was playing at a local movie theater for one night only, I immediately bought my tickets and cleared my Saturday night plans.
I’m so glad I did because Everything Everywhere All at Once was made to be watched on the big screen, packed with special effects and stunning visuals. The film is the most unique film I’ve ever seen. No other movie has made me cry over a scene of just two rocks or made taxes seem romantic.
The powerful performances are everything. Michelle Yeoh delivers a strong and heartfelt performance, Stephanie Hsu made me laugh and then made me cry, Ke Huy Quan gets the return to acting he deserves, and seeing Jamie Lee Curtis as an evil IRS agent is hilarious.
Story-wise, the film, like any multiversal movie, is everywhere, jumping from one plot line to the next: from a universe where humans all have hot dogs for fingers to a universe that has a plot similar to Ratatouille except with a raccoon. The film has basically every universe you can think of.
It made me feel every emotion all at once, truly fulfilling its title. I couldn’t stop laughing at the interactions between hot dog-fingered Yeoh and Curtis, and then 20 minutes later I was crying at Hsu’s deeply emotional confession to her character’s mother. “I'm tired. I don't want to hurt anymore and for some reason when I'm with you, it just hurts the both of us.” Her character exclaims to her mother with whom she has been fighting throughout the film. Ultimately, it is a story about family relations: their highs and lows.
The movie tugged at my heartstrings and even when rewatching it during ASU movie night, I still cried 3 times. Everything Everywhere All at Once is not afraid to be honest, something more movies today need to accomplish. The film proves that not all blockbuster movies full of fight scenes and visual effects are emotionless commercial nightmares. Unsurprisingly, it is the big winner in the race for Oscar nominations.