After something of a teaser in Marvel’s No Way Home, cinema-goers were expecting some fun-filled escapades across the infinite cosmos with the MCU’s latest film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Unfortunately, Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange failed to make much of a spark leaving room for Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once to sneak in and blow the multiverse – and our minds – wide open. 

The film starts innocuously enough as we are introduced to Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn Wang, a world-weary first generation Chinese-American laundromat owner preparing for an IRS audit whilst planning a Chinese New Year party good enough to please her disapproving father. She’s just about open enough to (semi) embrace her daughter, Joy’s, lesbianism although not so much so to allow Joy to come out to said disapproving patriarch – “It’s a different generation” – and in her busyness she is somewhat neglectful of her husband and seemingly oblivious to the fragile state of her marriage. In other words, she is living the American dream. 

Things start to get a little crazy at the tax office where, on her way to meet IRS agent Deirdre (played by an almost unrecognisable mustard-clad Jamie Lee Curtis), Evelyn is visited by an alternate version of her husband Waymond who has come from the Alpha-verse searching for the ‘right’ Evelyn, one who is so mundane and unremarkable, a disappointing failure in most sense of the word, that she will be the only one capable of saving the infinite multiverse from the omniscient being Jobu Tupaki who wants to suck the multiverse into the void of an everything bagel. Yep, you read that right, an everything bagel. 

The film’s first act is a little heavy on the exposition but necessarily so, if you’re anything like me when it comes to trying to wrap your head round anything remotely related to time or multiversal travel you need the extra effort to explain the fundamental workings of the world you are about the observe. And in this case, it’s even more important because once Evelyn starts to ‘verse-hop’ all the rules you think you knew about cinema go out the window and it becomes a veritable smorgasbord of choatic fun and absurdity. 

Cinematically, Everything Everywhere All At Once takes inspiration from various sources including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix and even Pixar’s Ratatouille and there is a rather excellent application of mixed media to depict various different universes and timelines which vary anywhere from the believable to bizarre to utterly ridiculous. I mean the inclusion of genuine footage of Michelle Yeoh on the red carpet was an ingenious masterstroke that adds a richness and realism to the insane tapestry that the writers are trying to create. 

It would be incredibly easy for this film to lose its way in amongst the chaos but it is held together thematically by its emotional core. Fundamentally this is a film about the relationships between a mother and a daughter, a husband and a wife, the what we are and the what we could have been. 

The mustard on top of this proverbial hot dog – if you know, you know – is the standout performances of its cast. Those of a certain age will be excited to see Ke Huy Quan’s return to the big screen, combining the comic timing and juvenile innocence that made him so beloved as Indiana Jones’ young sidekick Short Round with the career he later made for himself as a fight choreographer. Quan manages to convincingly balance the slick action hero, lethal with a bum-bag (or fanny-pack for you Americans), with the kind naivety of someone who sticks googly eyes to things to make the world a better place. 

Newcomer Stephanie Hsu delivers the goods in what can only be described as a breakout performance delivering a captivating and emotional blend of teenage angst, nihilism and villainy whilst also wildly wielding a pair of dildo-nunchucks. Kudos also to Jamie Lee Curtis in her role as the mean and cantankerous IRS agent, Curtis looks as though she is having an absolute ball of a time, like she doesn’t give a single flying f**k and I mean that in the best possible way.  

But it is not an understatement to say that the great cast just elevates Michelle Yeoh’s spectacular performance to a whole different level as she taps into a career that has spanned decades and genres. Wherever you know Yeoh from, whether it’s her mastery of martial arts in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the bullish no-nonsense Starfleet Lieutenant from Star Trek Discovery or the only bright spark in the otherwise lacklustre romantic-comedy Last Christmas, she brings it all to her turn as Evelyn. I’m typically atrociously bad at picking out potential award nominees but I do feel fairly confident that there will be some coming in the future. If not in this universe, then definitely in an alternate one. 

The absurdity of Everything Everywhere All At Once will not be to everyone’s taste – I can safely say that my mum would absolutely hate this film – but for all who watch it, for good or for bad, it won’t leave your memory anytime soon. It is ludicrous, absurdly hilarious and a little nauseating yet it is also profound, emotional and sincere. It’s wonderfully wacky, creative, complex and certifiably insane, beautiful yet totally bonkers. It is everything, everywhere, all at once. And it is a must watch for any self-professed cinephile.