Everything, Everywhere, a Year and a Half Late.

As soon as I saw the first coming attraction for Everything Everywhere All at Once  I knew it had the potential to be one of my favorite films.

It looked like a wild and crazy take on the multiverse ideas that have been cropping up in genre films regularly.

I've been a big fan of most of the main cast for a long time.

Michelle Yeoh, Key Huy Quan, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis.

(And I can now add Stephanie Hsu to that list for this and The Wild Robot.)

However, it took forever to watch it once it became nominated and then won all kinds of awards. I assumed that meant it would have a terrible ending and procrastinated a lot. 

Oops.

All the superhero universes may be playing in that genre. However, this was the best representation of a multiverse, because it went the full breath from enormous changes like completely different evolutionary paths, all the way down to putting a peice of paper in one of two piles.

All these variations meant the Oscars earned were well deserved as the story was crazy but focused, it looked amazing and all the performers were playing multiple highly varied versions of their characters.

Oddly, this film worked for the same reason the Deadpool films work. At its core is a strong, serious and normal story... surrounded by a huge amount of ridiculousness. The humor is at many levels from pointlessly goofy slapstick and absurdity, to little bits of subtlety.

(Jamie Lee Curtis plays Deirdre Beaubeirdre. They never reference this, or a thrown in "banana fanna fo."  They just leave it on a name plaque to be discovered.)

The straightforward version of central tale is about Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), a woman completely overwhelmed by pressures from her job, family and life in general. She eventually realizes how mentally and emotionally damaging that can be, and locks onto the important things in life, her loved ones. 

Because a great many viewers would see this, and think, 

"I have all of those pressures and I'm fine, she's just weak."

Aside- "They are not 'fine.'" 

Evelyn is thrust into an insane, infinitely varied multiverse, and forced to deal with mutlple versions of herself, others she knows and the world in general.

"Ah, no wonder she's overwhelmed," the simple minded viewers think.

The movie has a heart, and it has an important message, "Life is crazy and confusing, no one knows what's going on, therefore, choose empathy and compassion."

Key Huy Quan delivers a far better and more effective version of that concept, but it has the jist.

It also has juvenile humor, wild action scenes...

wild action scenes with juvenile humor,

fun character variations,

talking rocks,

Pixar parodies

hot dog fingers...

In other words, its sweet, absurd, heartwarming, insane, and a bunch of other stuff.

y'know, 

Everything, 

Everywhere, 

All At Once.

Excuse me, I have a craving for an everything bagel.