Everything Everywhere All At Once. What Do I Even Say?

For the most part, this writer isn’t a fan of A24. Not to say there isn’t plenty of good to fantastic films in their back catalogue. It’s more the general aesthetic of picking up the decidedly middlebrow festival fare. They then sell it to a niche audience of #filmTwitter eccentrics who have no idea what the general public wants to see. They instead send thirst twists and random hot takes for whatever the flavour of the month is. Thus when an A24 film starts getting an insane amount of hype expectations for those outside the circle for the kind of films they distribute will be very much put in check. That said if you had looked at any variety of film discourse over the last few months it would have been impossible to avoid the breakout success of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Beyond something that had already been labelled a future classic in some quarters all this viewer knew about it going in were the directors, that it was a multiverse movie and Michelle Yeoh was in the title role. The most Intriguing element of it was that it came from the Swiss army man directing the duo of Daniels. This author would include Swiss Army Man and its majorly deranged energy on the list of potential crossover A24 films. The fact that a filmmaking team that came across as so maverick with their debut feature has now made one of the most acclaimed films of the year (at least with US audiences and critics) seemed a little impossible. With the film just about to open in the UK the chance to see what all the fuss was about at an early screening could not be missed.
Wow. Having seen the film last night it is actively quite hard to describe what this watcher experienced. Other than to say it was the most purely entertaining, crowd-pleasing piece of cinema released in the past few years. Certainly, since the one-two punch of Parasite and Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse created universally acclaimed genre classics in back to back years (2019 and 2020.) Everything Everywhere is a completely insane, wild, utterly hilarious and emotionally resonant multiverse adventure anchored by a brilliant central performance from Michelle Yeoh. Importantly it is also executed with mechanical precision despite the inherently bonkers nature of the events playing out on screen. Every frame is bursting with all varieties of visual and verbal gags. Insanely inventive often gust gut bustlingly funny plot turns lead into yet another inventive twist or mechanic. This is mainstream cinema in its purest form. The ability for general audiences to spark their creative imaginations, with a story that can engage and emotionally invest anyone regardless of personal background. It’s a film that everyone should experience at least once. If this writer were to offer any hot takes it would be that 10 to 15 years ago this sort of mid-budget but the massively acclaimed mainstream accessible movie would have been handled by a studio with worldwide ambition. They would try to get the brilliance of the film out there to the widest audience possible. As opposed to being in the pantheon of the distributor like A24. They will be able to sell it to their audience. The thing is that a film like this deserves so much more than being a flash in the pan success on film-related social media. This author is conscious of feeding into the overhype. That said he cannot emphasise enough that the sheer amount of joy in realising films this insane yet mainstream-friendly can still be made and have an audience. Find the biggest screen and best audiences possible. UK cinemagoers are in for the ride of their lives.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is just concentrated wonderfully. this writer feels like he should issue a disclaimer that as with any piece of media the film won’t be for everyone. Yes, it’s hard not to imagine a large swath of potential audiences instantly falling in love with the insanely controlled shenanigans this peace offers. This fan certainly knows he did.