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🎙️ EPISODE 521: 07.30.22
Daniels — the ultra-clever named for the collective writing/directing duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — have done "DAN" it again! Two feature films into their career and they're 2-for-2. Six years after the stunningly weird yet surprisingly tender and human they return with Everything Everywhere All at Once, another INSTANT CLASSIC 10-out-of-10. This is also stunningly weird yet surprisingly tender and human, amping up both sides of that coin right up to their perspective breaking points. But never bursting. I personally balk at the suggestion that a movie with a title like this could be 'too much'. Too much of what, exactly? It's all right there, man. The movie ends with Michelle Yeoh, in the performance of a lifetime, drifting off into mental space, not really paying attention. 140 minutes or 80 minutes, a nanosecond or 37 hours: it's all the same.
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So a film with such explosive energy that, at times — like with their first film — feels too much to bear, ends up being about all the mindless moments in between. Twisting the nihilism of the concept "nothing matters" inside itself, making it a positive. It's brilliant. The writing again equal to the mind-bending visuals, the high-minded themes on par with the tremendous performances. A perfect cinema on all levels. As Part 1 ("Everything") builds to a ridiculous head, bordering on a random absurdity that flies past all tolerable or acceptable levels, Part 2 ("Everywhere") brings the audience down again, setting up a classic light/dark, good/evil character arc that explodes in a similarly surreal fashion, only swapping out left-field randomness for trickery rooted in tenderness and love (and that might be difficult to glean through all of the hotdog fingers and animatronic raccoons, but it's there), before its thoughtful denouement, back where we started.
The cosmic need to fight with hugs and not punches is something I can relate to on a personal level engaging with my 3-year-old son at times. It's the human condition. Fighting is easier than loving; the latter can feel impossible in the face of even the most basic stresses. But its in that push where we find the bliss that carries us through. It's really the only way.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a 2022 American absurdist comedy-drama film written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as "Daniels"), who co-produced it with the Russo brothers. It stars Michelle Yeoh as a Chinese-American woman being audited by the Internal Revenue Service who discovers that she must connect with parallel universe versions of herself to prevent a powerful being from causing the destruction of the multiverse. Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis appear in supporting roles. The film was described by The New York Times as a "swirl of genre anarchy" and features elements of black comedy, science fiction, fantasy, martial arts film and animation. It was released on March 11, 2022.
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