Everything Everywhere All at Once

Saw Everything Everywhere All at Once.  It was a lot to see!  It's about a woman who's life is spinning apart due to a combination of her perfectionism and her struggling business.  She's trying to organize her paperwork for an IRS audit on the eve of Chinese new year.  On top of this, her relationship with her lesbian daughter is strained to the breaking point by the mother's inability to accept her daughter as she is.

And so also (I'm still explaining the premise of the film here,) it turns out that there is a multi-verse of parallel dimensions which are all under assault by some super-powerful monster named Jobu Tupaki (which apparently translates to "pocket gun") which can only be stopped by some version of her (the mother.)  Jobu was once a human whose consciousness was scattered throughout the multi-verse.  Experiencing all possible worlds all at once has driven them mad: if some version of us does all things, it doesn't matter what we do.  If all things happen to some version of us, then it doesn't matter what happens.  Jobu just wants all of this to stop.

The film is gloriously overstuffed.  There's a heavy dose of whimsey and absurdity to the film.  In addition to incredibly absurd parallel universes based off of half-remembered movies, characters jump between universes by making unlikely choices, such as singing Ave Maria or blowing into someone's nose.  The characters (heroes and villains both!) will begin licking walls or singing Ave Maria in order to jump to a parallel universe where they have super-powered pinkies.  The overwhelming parallel universes however are the main weapon of Jobu, the antagonist.  Thus, all the whimsy and silliness takes on a sinister tone.  The childish absurdity of a parallel universe where people evolved to have hotdogs for fingers just serves to underscore the insultingly childish absurdity of our everyday life.

The film's simultaneous mixture of silliness and seriousness reminded me of the work of Don Herzfeld.  It's all sad and funny at the same time.  How much you laugh or cry is all up to you and your mood.  Will you let yourself be swept away by the dizzying kaleidoscope of imagery, or will you ruminate on the existential dread of infinite parallel universes sucking all meaning out of every choice?  Is the absurdity beautiful, or is it just absurd?

I really enjoyed the film.  Not only is there eye-popping imagery (which I am a huge sucker for) but there's parallels between the big and the small: can the mother not only control the chaos unfolding in infinite dimensions but also solve the chaos of her own life?  of her business? of her daughter?  Is it better to try to manage and control it all or to just walk away and escape it all?  The family drama is wonderfully interwoven with the philosophical questions of meaning and purpose.  This was a really good film!