The Everything Bagel 🥯— Everything Everywhere All At Once (Film Review)

One of my most anticipated movie of 2022, and one that I didn’t see coming.

Let me admit something upfront: I am a diehard A24 fan.

I can’t remember exactly when I turned into a full-fledged A24 fan, but as dramatic and as cheesy as it sounds, life was never the same when I became one. So naturally, whenever they drop a new trailer of their newest flick, I’d automatically turn into one of those fishes that clamor for the food thrown into the fish pond. Fiercely snatching every morsel of it down, and hungry for more.

But when I watched the trailer for “Everything Everywhere All At Once” featuring Michelle Yeoh as the lead, I just knew that this is going to get into my list of “Most Anticipated Films of 2022”. “Ding ding ding! Jackpot!” as it rang on my head.

Well, I just got around on watching it yesterday, and let me tell you just how my brain was definitely not prepared for this movie. At. All.

Beware: this review will contain light spoilers!

Let’s get started….

Down the Absurdist Rabbit Hole

Source: Google

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” follows the life of Evelyn Wang, played beautifully by the legendary Michelle Yeoh. She runs a struggling laundromat with her husband Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan. During a visit to the IRS office for a meeting with an IRS official, Waymond’s body is taken over by “Alpha Waymond”; a version of Waymond from another universe called “Alphaverse”. He tells her that this Evelyn, the greatest failure of all the versions of Evelyn ever existed, has the potential to defeat a looming evil called Jobu Tupaki. From that point on, Evelyn is dragged into the war of stopping Jobu Tupaki while tapping into the other Evelyns from other timelines, thus discovering what she could have been and what kind of lives she could have lived.

The film is split into 3 parts, and I’ll discuss it per parts.

Part 1: Everything

On a surface level, this is another movie in the ever-expanding catalog of movies with multiverse as its main concept. But I feel like this movie is leagues better than “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” when it comes to exploring the multiverse concept.

When the movie reaches the point where Evelyn can tap into the other versions of Evelyns, the movie turned into a phenomenaly deranged sci-fi epic, filled to the brim with Dada-ist absurdism, with so much hysteria and so much mayhem that I was just as confused as Evelyn was. But I was in for the whole roller coaster ride. The sheer insanity and absurdism in the first act of this movie sent me into a ball of hysteria, and a lot of times I found myself either yelling, mouth wide open, screaming, or wincing in pain as the movie progressed. The comedy was also woven into the film so well, resulting in hilarious moments that I absolutely love.

And the moment when I think I knew where the movie is headed to, the movie managed to pull the rug under me and I found myself yet again, screaming in hysteria. The sheer insanity of it is reflective of the mix of emotions that I experienced when watching this first half.

I also need to applaud the visual effects team for the film’s visuals and editing, specifically on the Part 1 of this film. If you really take a step back and see the movie in a bigger picture, the visuals are absolute bonkers and the mashup & everything shouldn’t have worked in the first place. Almost a lot of the elements are so out of place, and the level of absurdity so off the charts. There is just no way it would’ve worked!

But it worked! And the team behind it made it so believable, that I actually was able to suspend my disbelief for the entire run of the movie. It was incredibly well done without a single element out of place.

Nothing Truly Matters

Joy/Jobu Tupaki’s outifts are not to be missed in this movie

Part 1 might be the part where all the funsies and wacky shit gets thrown left and right, and hell yeah I enjoyed and laughed the shit out of that one. But for me, Part 2 is what makes the film shines even brighter than before. This is the part where everything just hits way too close to home, at least for me.

Part 2: Everywhere and Part 3: All At Once

At its core, the film has its own MacGuffin, or a doomsday object, if you will: the proverbial bagel of doom, The Everything Bagel.

At this point, it’s already clear that Jobu Tupaki is a version of Joy from the “Alphaverse”, Evelyn’s own daughter. Jobu Tupaki was the one who created this bagel of doom, and her reason for creating this is not the usual “villain’s story” that you’d find anywhere else. Since she can verse-jump anytime on her own will and experiences all universes at once, and there are just so many universes out there, she feels that nothing truly matters. The bagel that she created is reflective of her own inner struggle and demons, and as silly as having a bagel be representative of depression, it does makes sense in a way.

If you’ve put everything on a bagel, what more can you put on it? Is there anything left?

And if you’ve experienced everything the multiverse offered to you, is there even anything left to experience?

From the beginning of the movie, we can see how Joy is trying to gain recognition from Evelyn and trying to have her own mother accept her new girlfriend, Becky. But the way that Evelyn is constantly saying how she is “open-minded” to Joy’s life choices but her actions say otherwise, and how Evelyn told Joy that she only come to see her parents when she needs something. It does remind me a lot of my own relationship with my own parents.

The Chinese family dynamic portrayed in this film hits so close to home, that when Jobu Tupaki says that the bagel’s sole existence is so that she can use it to destroy herself, I understand her.

I remember the days when my own mother would push me way too hard during my teenage years, and never once tried to sit down and understand what I wanted her to know. And although I’m in the position where I just give zero fucks about what my mother wants me to be and just focus on what I really want to be, a part of me yearn for that acceptance that will never come.

And it fucking hurts.

Stephanie Hsu’s portrayal of Joy/Jobu Tupaki is so phenomenal, and although she acted alongside the legends that is Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, I think she stole the show in here. And I’m so glad that she replaced Awkwafina, because the film will never be the same if Awkwafina was in it.

And Jobu Tupaki’s outlandish outifts are also not to be missed! Not only are they so wild and crazy, somehow I feel that the outfits really do represent Jobu Tupaki’s psyche at that moment. And as the movie progresses, the wilder they became.

During the climax of the movie, while it was Evelyn who ended up saving the world, I honestly think it was Waymond who helped Evelyn see what was really important across all of the universes. Without Waymond’s call to be kind and have hope, Evelyn won’t be able to reach out to Joy. It was so heart-wrenching to see just how much Waymond loved Evelyn in every single universe that they’re in, and despite his own shortcomings, he would literally defend her to the ends of the Earth.

Of All The Places I Could Be

Source: Google

I have a lot of thoughts about this movie. This movie can make me both scream and laugh and cry at the same time, and that’s no easy feat. Despite how wild and nonsensical this film can be on the outside, it has a lot of heart and deeper meaning on the inside. Kudos to Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for making this two separate aspects into something that’s incredibly coherent, from start to end.

And at the same time, I feel that this movie might as well be an autobiography on Michelle Yeoh’s whole career. While she is already a legend in the movie industry, it’s so great to see her finally landing this role of a lifetime. I watched an interview of her before, and when she talked about how life-defining this role is for her, I whole-heartedly agree with that. She deserves this. This is her moment.

On paper, the actual story of this movie is so simple and not at all unique. But the Daniels were able to lift this from something basic to something outlandish, spectacular, and show-stopping. Thus raising it from the sea of movies with the same concept. And I like how this film really makes me think on how we can strive to achieve comfort in the lives that we’ve made for ourselves, even though our existence is just some insignificant blip in an ever expanding universe.

A lot of us do grapple with existential dread at some point in our lives, but as Evelyn teaches Joy at the end of the film, if we just kept on thinking about the ‘what ifs’, we’ll miss the positives that we already have in front of our noses.

And I think that’s just such a beautiful thing.

And that, folks, is why I think “Everything Everywhere All At Once” did the concept of multiverse so much better than “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”.

Final Rating: 10000/10