Everything Everywhere All At Once has a high-gloss and high-energy zaniness that's rare; along with the many deliberate thematic touchstone film references that it throws in along the way (The Matrix and In The Mood for Love or really any Wong Kar Wai film to name two), I thought of both Being John Malkovich and Love Exposure early on. At the same time, it has proper narrative momentum and a sense of about-ness that's grounded in the Asian-American and family dynamics with which it leads, and the broader themes of generational despair and personal life choices, regrets and acceptances into which it opens, along with all the crazy.
In its deployment of what turns out to be a Chekhov's butt plug-shaped auditing award it has surely one of the silliest and funniest fight scene pivots ever filmed, and in its use of martial arts - and of Michelle Yeoh - it has a sincere affection and respect for those aspects of its sources. Not to mention the gift of committed, wily acting from all concerned. The movie takes on big themes, and in some respects predictable ones given its foundational multiversal premise, but stays idiosyncratically specific enough to launch itself towards an earned universality - rather than collapsing into generality. Glad I made the effort to watch this one.
