Everything and More

Just from the cast list, we knew we wanted to see Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) - actually, Michelle Yeoh was enough.

It starts with Yeoh as a harried, stressed out owner/operator of a coin laundry somewhere in America. She is trying to get things together for an IRS audit, while her her husband (Ke Huy Quan, who played Short Round and Data in Goonies) tries to get a moment of her time. Her traditional grandfather (James Hong) is visiting from China, and her daughter (Stephanie Hsu) wants her to acknowledge her lesbian girlfriend. Also, there's always some problem in the laundry that needs looking at. She can't stop for anything, not even her husband - who we find out is trying to serve her with divorce papers.

But in the elevator on the way to the IRS audit, Quan suddenly changes. He is no long mild and goofy, but serious and focused. He tells her that there are many universes, and he comes from one of the main ones. They are all threatened by a villain called Jobu Tupki. He suggests that instead of going to the audit, she turn into the janitor's closet and wait there. Then he goes back to normal.

She assumes this was a hallucination and heads to the audit with her whole family. The auditor is Jamie Lee Curtis, done up as Cathie the Secretary from Kids in the Hall. She is brutal and bitchy. Yeoh is doing the best she can, but she's suddenly drawn into the janitor's closet, where cool-Quan continues to explain. It seems that Jobu Tupaki has been to too many universes, can control all reality and has developed a case of nihilism. Nihilism! Fuck me. Tupaki has started a cult based on the Everything Bagel, which really does contain everything - and will soon consume the whole multiverse.

Then she snaps back to the audit, and is accused of daydreaming. After a bit of this, she attacks Curtis, security comes, and it becomes an ongoing firefight.

So Yeoh starts bouncing around different universes, including one where she and Tupaki are telepathic rocks, and one where people have hot dogs for fingers. In that universe, Yeoh and Curtis are lovers. She also meets Jobu Tupaki, who is her daughter Hsu from another universe. And, by the way, gets the most radical fashion fits ever. 

She even finds herself in a universe like ours, where she is a martial arts movie star, and Quan, who she never married, is a billionaire businessman. That turns out to be useful, because our Yeoh can use the martial arts powers that Yeoh and other hers have in other universes. When she needs knife skills, she takes them from a Yeoh that works at a Benihana. Oddly, this is the universe of Raccaccoonie, the movie about a chef with raccoon under his hat who controls his movements. 

And so much more. Everything, in fact.

I have a few complaints about this movie. For one, the googly eyes don't really ever pay off. For another, the idea is that the main Yeoh is a fuck-up, a dreamer and a loser. And she's Michelle Flipping Yeoh! Hard to get your head around. Also, Quan's personality is a little underdone - he carries it more through acting than the writing. 

But overall, this is wonderful. Aside from Yeoh and the Daniels ' writing and directing, it makes a great entry into the Multiverse of Marvel movies.