It's rare for me to be floored by a movie on first viewing these days. I think it is for most adults. We approach everything (everywhere. All at once. Had to) so guardedly and with such cynicism and so many reservations and cautious glances, that we don't allow ourselves to be swept away. We wonder what the ulterior motive is, and wait for the other shoe to drop. Also, let's be honest. We've all been watching movies for decades now. We have our old favorites. They've been our favorites for decades. We're always comparing the new horror or action or comedy or whatever to something in that genre we've had in our lives for 10, 20, 30 years and seen DOZENS of times. Movies we know inside and out and have come to LOVE over the course of many many years.
That's why I'm always SO floored when I see something and IMMEDIATELY love it. It's such a rare thing. In 2016, Daniels created a quirky, fun little movie that I instantly fell in love with called Swiss Army Man. It wound up being my favorite movie of the year for that quirkiness and unique flavor, but quite honestly, it took me a couple watches to kinda get there. Not so much because I wasn't taken with it, but because there were others that year I also loved that and I felt like I had to hem and haw.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a movie I loved almost instantly. Obviously not INSTANTLY, in fact, the movie is almost a little jarring right in its opening moments. That's by design, as it has its characters alternate between English and Chinese while rapid-firing dialogue and setup at you. Not only because hey, EVERYTHING being thrown at you ALL AT ONCE is what's promised in the title and feels thematically appropriate, but also to set the tone of the lives of our characters and the insane 2020s sort of life they're leading where they have to just constantly power through every moment of every day because there's no time to stop and breathe and consider and life comes at you WAY TOO FAST. It's real. It's heartbreaking. It sucks....

....until it doesn't. The movie comes on STRONG and HARD with some bleak cynicism but then flips it. It hits you with some very real, genuine emotion. Some of it is mildly pander-y and/or there for a laugh. That's the fun of it. But there's a very real emotional CORE to this movie, on top of all the high-octane action (whose choreography you generally can actually SEE without losing the lay of the land in wild camera tricks and impossible angles), the FUNNY off-kilter humor (and on-kilter? Is that a thing? Anyway, there are both belly-laughs and smirks, physical comedy and thinkers), and kind of heavy plotting. In fact, if I have ONE complaint (and aside from MINOR nitpicks, I feel like I do only have one) it's that the movie gets at little plotty around the 45-minute mark or so. At one point, Evelyn says "Wait. Stop. Explain everything to me." and Waymond launches into exposition for a while and for the briefest of moments I thought to myself "This is getting a little heavy on exposition." But that minor moment of misgiving was soon washed away and the movie never really feels like it's lingering or languishing or getting too bogged down by any of its heavy world(s)-building.

Also, the performances here, from EVERY actor who has significant lines: Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis, James Hong, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan (!!!! Not exactly a household name here but it's SHORT ROUND!). All are spectacular. I've seen Michelle Yeoh in a few things, and generally like her, and I've taken it as a matter of course from friends who say she's AWESOME that she just is, despite not being overly familiar with MOST of her filmography...but to hear her talk about how happy she is to finally get a showcase. To show people she's an ACTOR and can do more than just be a badass Chinese woman who kicks ass. Wow. That's powerful. AND she's GREAT in this. Beyond great. Jamie Lee Curtis too is excellent. I last saw her look like she gave a shit in Knives Out, which wasn't SUPER long ago, but at the same time, I kind of assumed we were entering into the (shit, what's a good example now that we're not supposed to pick on Bruce Willis anymore...?) Robert DeNiro/Al Pacino (?) era of just like, coasting on your name and not giving a shit anymore and she'd just be "crusty old angry lady" in horror movies from now on. I don't know WHY I thought that, but I did, and I'm glad to see her give an actual performance here. Stephanie Hsu too brings the fire with emotion and passion (and there's a surprising element kind of lacking from her character's story that I almost wonder if it was cut - but she's still GREAT). She's a spectacular villain and gives an excellent nuanced performance. Hey, James Hong can still bring the damn heat too. And Yeah, let's talk about Ke Huy Quan. Dude hasn't had a role in like 20 years, hasn't had a role in an American movie in 30, and hasn't had a role audiences remember in almost 40, and has never had to show range as an actor (though I stan for Short Round and think it's a wildly underrated child actor performance). He brings the ABSOLUTE FIRE here. He threatens to steal the show from Yeoh. He's THAT good. Oh and let's just point out how awesome it is of Daniels to cast him as Yeoh's husband despite her being 9 years his senior. Typical Hollywood casting would pair her with someone older, or honestly, not give a starring role to a nearly 60 year-old woman. Typical casting would have Gemma Chan or Jamie Chung (both 39) as the haggard, worn-out, middle-aged woman. I like both of those actresses, for the record. I just think we should applaud a little bit for some inclusive casting since it so rarely happens.

I can't love this movie hard enough, and I'll be legitimately surprised to see it wind up anywhere other than my number one spot for 2022. It's not hyperbolic to say I've never seen anything like this before, and while I kind of hope it actually spawns some imitators (lesser versions of perfect movies can still be damn fun watches), I doubt we're likely to get anything like this in that sense again for some time. It's not every day a movie comes along and shows you things you've never seen before but Daniels have done that TWICE now. Here's hoping we don't have to wait six years for their next effort (and also that they can avoid being sucked into the vacuum of Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking and have their style diluted down to a joke they're capable of slipping past the algorithms designed to make all movies the same). Here's hoping anything else the rest of the year can measure up to this. Here's hoping Michell Yeoh gets and Oscar nom. Here's hooping Ke Huy Quan gets more work moving forward. Here's hope, in film form. And it's rejuvenating and DELIGHTFUL.