Everything Everywhere All At Once Is Amazing
When I am asked what my favorite movie is, a couple of titles come to mind, and Everything Everywhere All At Once is definitely one of them. Everything Everywhere All At Once, also known as EEAAO, is an absurdist, award-winning comedy-drama film directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the creators of the “Turn Down for What” music video. EEAAO was released on March 11, 2022, grossing $143.4 million worldwide on a production budget of $14–25 million. EEAAO is a film about a struggling Chinese immigrant family and their struggles with taxes on their laundromat business and family relations, with a side of multiversal shenanigans. I love EEAAO, it’s hilarious, tear-jerking, and beautiful. 5 stars.
I want to start off by talking about the characters. The characters are one of the strongest parts of the film: each character has their own struggles and flaws, and that makes the film incredibly compelling. For example, Evelyn, played by Oscar-winning Michelle Yeoh, loves her family despite their difficulties, but has a hard time showing that love to her child. Evelyn is not perfect; in fact, she’s not really good at anything. This produces an engaging character that may seem relatable to others.
Another character that I adore is Waymond, played by Key Huy Quan. Waymond is Evelyn’s husband, and he’s the sweet, lovable counterpart to Evelyn’s seriousness. Waymond is also flawed. He struggles incredibly hard, lacking assertiveness and being timid and passive. This leads others to see him as way too weak, especially when it comes to controlling the struggling laundromat. However, in one of my favorite scenes, we see that Waymond is still strong due to his immeasurable kindness and unwavering love for his family. We see that even with all the flaws of Evelyn and the family, it is the person who looks weak who holds and supports them all.
The cinematography of the film is also breathtaking. You can tell that each scene and each shot has an incredible amount of work put into it. Even the color is subtly switched around to give different feelings, with different universes having different colors. Warmer colors are used in a whimsical and silly universe, while darker and cooler colors are used in a sadder universe. Even the aspect ratio changes to stimulate different moods. The action scenes are also shot insanely well; they are all entertaining with some legitimately cool martial arts work. There was so much work put into the film, and a crazy amount of good cinematography on just a budget of $25 million.
The humor of the film is also enjoyable. A lot of the humor comes from the randomness and the absurdity of what’s going on; stupid things happening tend to be pretty funny. Many parts of the film got a big chuckle out of me. The film does comedy decently, but I found some of the jokes very awkward and TOO absurd. Although the humor is good in the film, the film has stronger points in its characters, plot, and cinematography.
Overall, EEAAO is a top-tier movie and a rightful winner of its awards. EEAAO has incredibly strong characters, phenomenal acting, brilliant cinematography, amazing humor, and more. I give it a 5-star rating because it is such a good, enjoyable watch. I hope that other people can watch this movie and enjoy it just as much as I did.