Everything Everywhere All At Once Review

I’ve seen a lot of movies in my life - more than the average person I’m certain. When you’ve seen as much as I’ve seen, it can be harder to enjoy some things. Your tastes sharpen and refine, and you start to find certain popular trends irritating or bland and boring. You tend to feel jaded even if you aren’t, simply because you can see the flaws that other people can’t, or because you’re not content with the same things your friends and family are when it comes to film. That’s why it’s so refreshing to be genuinely blown away by something on first watch. It reminds you that yes, you do enjoy film, and no, you aren’t jaded and cynical beyond saving. Nothing I’ve seen recently exemplifies this more than my experience with Everything Everywhere All At Once.

I knew from the trailers that this would likely be something special, but I still had no idea what I was really getting into. I was thinking that it would be a fun, creative and intelligent sci-fi action/adventure tour-de-force that would likely leave me with a smile on my face and something to talk about with friends. It is all of those things, but it’s also so, so much more. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a movie so utterly insane but so absolutely genuine in every single one of its many quirks and facets that everything about it not only feels enjoyable but completely earned. I can’t remember the last time I saw something so fully well-rounded, so entirely satisfying, so complete, so flawless.

I’m not even sure where to start, because everything is just so good, and my thoughts about it are so difficult to pin down with typical film critique. Perhaps the thing that jumps out the most is its editing, because while everything about this film is good, that’s probably its most defining feature as far as the craft of filmmaking goes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen better or more creative editing in a film. I’m extremely picky about pacing; I can’t think of a single film where I haven’t felt a little bit iffy about the flow of events or some story choice or other. I’m so sensitive to it that I’ve long since learned when it’s actually a problem and when it’s just a nitpick, but it’s typically there and it’s almost always something that comes up when I’m thinking about the movie afterwards. Everything Everywhere All At Once is absolutely flawless in its pacing. Even my overly-picky brain couldn’t help but completely turn off as I got sucked into the constant rhythm and flow of this work. Everything felt intentional, every aspect of the story given just the right amount of length, and every cut served to further the flow of action and story with masterful guidance.

After leaving the theater and talking with another moviegoer in the lobby, I learned that the directing team behind this, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as Daniels) were formerly music video directors, and it really shows. In a lot of cases, music video-esque direction and editing can come off as overly flashy and stylish without much actual substance. At the same time, though, a good music video director understands the power of style, the power of images, the power of energy and pacing and flow, and understands how to fit these all together to create a seamlessly engaging experience that keeps up the momentum from start to finish. The latter is what we get in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Its frenetic energy is perfectly managed by its innovative cutting and incredible use of montage, and its inventive and astounding fight choreography is matched by this expert pacing. It’s a film constantly bombarding you with new ideas and images that almost threatens to fall off balance, but it never loses sight of its core emotional throughline and the ideas that hold it in place.

Those ideas work together to tell one of the more unique stories that I’ve seen, but also one that’s grounded in very intimate, very familiar issues of family, self-worth and self-acceptance and depression all wrapped in a chaotic bundle of existential conflict. It’s a bona fide anxiety attack of a film that, while being incredibly funny and an absolute joy to experience, is also one of the most genuine depictions of so many different issues at once, and how they all just seem to bundle together into one big giant hole at the center of the human psyche. The characters are pretty much all interesting, relatable and well-rounded, and they are grounded by excellent performances from Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, an unexpected but entirely welcome Jamie Lee Curtis, and of course a standout Michelle Yeoh who absolutely steals the show and makes this character and her journey entirely her own.

I’m sitting here listing out the things the film does well in terms of craft, and I could keep doing that probably for hours. As I’m writing this, though, this typical review format doesn’t really seem to fit for this one. I could continue to list off the pros of this movie in an impassioned way, but I just can’t. My mind can’t quantify this film like that. So I’m going to instead talk about how it made me feel. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It reminded me that I was still capable of enjoying movies. It made me feel seen. This movie nearly perfectly encapsulates my philosophy on life and existence, about how everything can feel like it’s too much sometimes, and meaning can get lost – and how, crucially, it can be regained. It reminded me that even when I’m at my lowest, I’m not alone, and there’s always something to love. And even now, when I’m trying to think about it in normal review terms, all I can really think about is seeing it again, about showing it to all of my friends and family and watching them go through the same experience I did with this film. There’s a part of myself that this film put to images and words better than I ever could, and for that I’m grateful.

I can’t dismiss the possibility that there might be some recency bias at play, but Everything Everywhere All At Once is one of the best films I’ve ever seen period. It had me utterly speechless by its end, with tears in my eyes and a huge smile on my face. I’ve been thinking about it nonstop since watching it, and I’ll keep thinking about it until I can see it again. I’m more excited about this than I was about any film I’ve seen since who knows when, and I urge anyone who finds any of this interesting to check it out as well.