Is Oscar winner ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ worth watching?

The Oscars 2023’s Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once is a testament to how far Hollywood has come in recent years that a mind-scrambling sci-fi action comedy, about a stressed Chinese American immigrant who has to save the multiverse won the big prize.

Despite its maximalist moniker, it is not a “huge” movie like some of its fellow Best Picture candidates. It’s hardly the kind of movie directors make with the expectation of winning Best Picture. The Academy likes serious prestige dramas; Everything Everywhere All at Once is anything but outrageously hilarious and profoundly weird fantasy. It was weird, sweet, and fast-paced; it was made on a tight budget and released in the spring, but it debuted slowly and with a small audience. But as soon as it got going, it was a force to be reckoned with.

The strange martial arts adventure, which was made on a very small $25 million budget by directing team Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (also known as the Daniels), appeared out of nowhere to become one of the biggest box office successes of the pandemic years. Nowadays, it’s becoming less common for indie movies to become box office successes, yet Everything Everywhere All at Once made more than $100 million worldwide owing to good ol’ word of mouth and repeat visits from fans.

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Although, the film is sometimes hard to keep up with, it’s worth watching, even if you missed it in theatres.

This genre-bending film, starring Michelle Yeoh (of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame), is a combination of science fiction, comedy, and drama that will send you on a cinematic whirlwind and leave you reflecting on your choices and actions. It also reaffirms the importance of love and family ties in human life.

What is it about this movie that allowed it to compete with well-known Hollywood actors? Everything, Everywhere, Everything at Once is arguably the most surprising and interesting spectacle about a family at its core.

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Evelyn, a Chinese immigrant who lives in America and is married to Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), is portrayed by Michelle Yeoh in a masterful performance. She also has a kid (Stephanie Hsu). She manages a laundry that is being audited by an IRS agent who is intimidating and callous, Ms. Diedre (Jamie Lee Curtis).

As the Chinese New Year draws near, Evelyn is dejectedly organizing a stack of receipts while preparing the celebration when her daughter asks if she can bring her lesbian girlfriend. She is unaware that her spouse wants a divorce.

In the midst of all of this, Evelyn’s conservative and cantankerous father, Gong Gong (James Hong), is travelling all the way from China to attend the celebration. Evelyn does not want to discuss her daughter’s sexual preferences with her father.

A hole in the multiverse unintentionally forces Evelyn to confront the countless different lives that were created with each decision she made or didn’t make as she travels to the IRS office with her father and timid husband to face the music. The storyline whisks you away on a madcap tour of Evelyn’s parallel lives in parallel verses. The most crucial elements in any life route are her family and her affection for her kid. Despite it all, Evelyn understands how her life has been fashioned by every regret, unrealized wish, and rejection she has experienced. She also realizes that if she had taken a different path, nothing that she is going through would have been any different.

Michelle Yeoh maintains her brilliance and effectiveness throughout this intricate and visually arresting series of unpredictable events, keeping her head above water and changing into a quick-footed kung fu fighter, evoking her earlier roles in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. In parallel verses, she portrays herself as a trained kung fu fighter, a chef, a movie star as a tribute to Wong Kar-wai, and a Chinese opera singer.

It takes guts, a feverish imagination, and a lot of googly eyes to come up with something truly unique in a field choked with endless comic book adaptations, sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. Where else might a love scene be performed using chubby hotdog fingers? Perhaps fight scenes including weaponry like a fanny pack and a gigantic butt plug? Perhaps nihilism, a lofty philosophical concept symbolised by a large, spinning bagel?

Some critics have complained that it is messy and overbearing. But, in the two hours and 20 minutes that Everything Everywhere All at Once is on screen, there are more original ideas than there have been in all of Hollywood over the previous 12 months. We can only hope that Academy voters will see the importance of recognizing this kind of innovation.