Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Stephanie Hsu, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., Jamie Lee Curtis
OUR RATING: ★★★★☆
Story:
A24’s sci-fi fantasy comedy written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) centers on an aging Chinese immigrant, Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), who is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led. Unfortunately, this sweeps her up into an even bigger adventure when she finds herself lost in the infinite worlds of the multiverse.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'So, even though you have broken my heart yet again, I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.' - CEO Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Best Quotes
Joy Wang: You look really pretty right now.
Becky Sregor: Oh, you like this hot Mormon look?
Joy Wang: I’m just telling you now in case my mom says something dumb like you’re fat or whatever.
Becky Sregor: I thought you said when she says s**t like that, it means she cares.
Evelyn Wang: You know, he doesn’t have to stay.
Joy Wang: Who’s he?
Evelyn Wang: Becky.
Joy Wang: Becky’s a she.
Evelyn Wang: You know me. I always mix up “he”, “she”. In Chinese, just one word “ta”, so easy. And the way you two are dressed, I’m sure I’m not the only one calling him “he”. I mean her “him”.
Becky Sregor: I always learn something when I hang out with the elderly. Old people are very wise.
'Every rejection, every disappointment has led you here, to this moment. Don't let anything distract you from it.' - Alpha Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Joy Wang: Mom, just wait.
Evelyn Wang: Wait? Wait? No time to wait today. Joy, any other time, I beg you to come and eat, or call me, or anything, but today very busy.
Joy Wang: Mom, this is literally what it’s always like.
Evelyn Wang: I have something to say to you!
Joy Wang: What?
Evelyn Wang: You have to try and eat healthier. You are getting fat.
Part 1: Everything
Alpha Waymond Wang: [to Evelyn] Pay attention. When we leave this elevator, you can either turn left, towards your scheduled audit appointment, or you can turn right, and go into the janitor’s closet.
Deirdre Beaubeirdre: Look, I was just hoping you could enlighten me as to how, as a laundromat owner, a karaoke machine could constitute a business expense?
Evelyn Wang: I am a singer.
Deirdre Beaubeirdre: Of course you are.
Waymond Wang: It’s true. She has a beautiful voice.
'You underestimate how the smallest decisions can compound into significant differences over a lifetime.' - Alpha Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Alpha Waymond Wang: I am not your husband. At least not the one you know. I am another version of him from another life path, another universe. I’m here because we need your help.
Evelyn Wang: Very busy today. No time to help you.
Alpha Waymond Wang: [to Evelyn] There is a great evil that has taken root in my world and has begun spreading its chaos throughout the many verses. I have spent years searching for the one who might be able to match this great evil with an even greater good and bring back balance. All those years of searching have brought me here, to this universe. To you.
Deirdre Beaubeirdre: [referring to her awards] Do you see these? You don’t get one of these unless you’ve seen a lot of bulls**t. Excuse my French. Now you may only see a pile of boring forms and numbers, but I see a story, with nothing but a stack of receipts. I can trace the ups and downs of your lives, and it does not look good. It does not look good.
Waymond Wang: Sorry, my wife confuses her hobbies for businesses. An honest mistake.
Deirdre Beaubeirdre: Oh. Okay. Well, with all of these “honest mistakes”, I mean, even if we don’t charge you with fraud, we’ll most certainly have to fine you for gross negligence.
Evelyn Wang: You’re always trying to confuse us with these big words.
Evelyn Wang: [to Alpha Waymond] What is “gross necklaces”?
'You're capable of anything because you're so bad at everything.' - Alpha Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Alpha Waymond Wang: I know you have a lot of things on your mind, but nothing could possibly matter more than this conversation we are having right now concerning the fate of every single world of our infinite multiverse! My dear Evelyn, I know you. With every passing moment, you fear you might have missed your chance to make something of your life. I’m here to tell you, every rejection, every disappointment has led you here, to this moment. Don’t let anything distract you from it.
Waymond Wang: [after Evelyn punches Deirdre in the face] What are you doing?
Evelyn Wang: You told me to do it! You said I would know when it is the time to fight! She was coming after us.
Deirdre Beaubeirdre: Oh! Oh, you have no idea, lady. Oh! Assaulting an IRS agent? You have no idea!
Evelyn Wang: [in English and Mandarin] What is happening? Are we getting divorced.
Alpha Waymond Wang: I’m not the Waymond who wants to divorce you. I’m the Waymond who is saving your life. Now, you can either come with me and live up to your ultimate potential, or lie here and live with the consequences.
Evelyn Wang: I want to lie here.
Evelyn Wang: My husband won’t even kill a spider. How can you be the same person?
Alpha Waymond Wang: You underestimate how the smallest decisions can compound into significant differences over a lifetime. Every tiny decision creates another branching universe, another… Were you not paying attention before?
Evelyn Wang: Of course. You’re just very bad at explaining…
Alpha Waymond Wang: Shh!
Alpha Waymond Wang: In this world, you were a brilliant woman. In your search to prove the existence of other universes, you discovered a way to temporarily link your consciousness to another version of yourself, accessing all of their memories, their skills, even their emotions.
Evelyn Wang: Like you with the fanny pack?
Alpha Waymond Wang: Exactly. It’s called Verse Jumping. I need you to learn how to do it right now.
Evelyn Wang: Right now?!
'Every new discovery is just a reminder we're all small and stupid.' - Joy and Evelyn (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Evelyn Wang: Why don’t you get your Evelyn to do this?
Alpha Waymond Wang: My Evelyn is dead.
Alpha Waymond Wang: I’ve seen you die a thousand ways, in a thousand worlds. In every single one, you were murdered.
Evelyn Wang: What? Why would anybody want to kill me?
Alpha Waymond Wang: She’s an omniversal being with unimaginable power, an agent of pure chaos, with no real motives or desires. Jobu Tupaki.
Evelyn Wang: You’re just making up sounds.
Alpha Waymond Wang: [referring to Jobu Tupaki] She’s been building something. We thought it was some sort of black hole. But it appears to consume more than just light and matter. We don’t know exactly what it is. We don’t know what it’s for. But we can all feel it. You’ve been feeling it too, haven’t you? Something is off. Your clothes never wear as well the next day. Your hair never falls in quite the same way. Even your coffee tastes wrong. Our institutions are crumbling. Nobody trusts their neighbour anymore. And you stay up at night wondering to yourself…
Evelyn Wang: How can we get back?
Alpha Waymond Wang: This is the Alphaverse’s mission, to take us back to how it’s supposed to be. But that begins with finding the one who can stand up to Jobu’s perverse shroud of chaos.
Evelyn Wang: And you think it’s me?
Alpha Waymond Wang: Why else would we risk everything to get you out of here?
Alpha Waymond Wang: You’re going to have to profess your love to Deirdre.
Evelyn Wang: No way.
Alpha Waymond Wang: It’s your jumping pad. It’s like eating the chap stick, or switching shoes. We developed an algorithm that calculates which statistically improbable action will place you in a universe on the edge of your local cluster, which then sling shots you to the desired universe.
Evelyn Wang: That doesn’t make any sense!
Alpha Waymond Wang: Exactly. The less sense it makes, the better.
'The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind. Especially when we don't know what's going on.' - Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Alpha Waymond Wang: [referring to Deirdre] Tell her you love her, and mean it.
Evelyn Wang: Are there any other jumping pads?
Alpha Waymond Wang: The next best paths are break your own arm, or take a nap. You’re not sleepy, are you?
Alpha Waymond Wang: I need to find the right Evelyn. And this one, it’s not the one.
Evelyn Wang: No! No. Wait! Let me try again!
Evelyn Wang: [to Waymond] I saw my life, without you. I wish you could have seen it. It was beautiful.
Alpha Waymond Wang: [to Evelyn] Your mind, it’s like a clay pot holding water. Every jump opens another crack, causing things to leak through. With training, you will learn to reseal these cracks.
Alpha Waymond Wang: Listen, you’re only using the other worlds to acquire special skills. Do you understand? If you fall for their temptations, you invite contradiction, chaos. The clay pot could shatter and you could die, or far worse.
Evelyn Wang: What can be worse than death?
'You're not unlovable. There is always something to love. Even in a stupid, stupid universe where we have hot dogs for fingers, we get very good with our feet.' - Evelyn Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Evelyn Wang: Enough of your clay pots, cream cheese, no cows. Explain it all to me now!
Alpha Waymond Wang: You’re right. In the Alpha verse, we began training many young minds to Verse Jump. But there was one who was far and above the most gifted. Our little explorer. You saw her potential, so you pushed her beyond her limit. Though the overloaded mind usually dies, instead her mind was fractured. Now her mind experiences every world, every possibility, at the same exact time, commanding the infinite knowledge and power of the multiverse. Now she’s seen too much, lost any sense of morality, any belief in objective truth.
Evelyn Wang: What does she want?
Alpha Waymond Wang: No one knows. All we know is she’s looking for you.
Evelyn Wang: Hey, you said I was the wrong one.
Alpha Waymond Wang: What you did back there, it changed my mind. You were incredible.
Evelyn Wang: Oh, my God. You’re Juju Toobootie. The “Great Evil” Waymond was talking about is in my Joy?
Evelyn Wang: It’s you. You’re the reason my daughter doesn’t call anymore, why she dropped out of college, and gets tattoos. You are why she thinks she is gay.
Joy Wang (Jobu Tupaki): I’m so sorry. You’re still hung up on the fact that I like girls in this world? The universe is so much bigger than you realize.
'No matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always, always want to be here with you.' - Evelyn Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Evelyn Wang: Don’t make me fight you. I am really good.
Joy Wang (Jobu Tupaki): I don’t believe you.
Alpha RV Officer: [referring to Evelyn] She appears to be in a universe where everyone has hot dogs instead of fingers.
Joy Wang (Jobu Tupaki): You know, of all the Evelyns I’ve seen, you’re definitely one of the more interesting ones.
Joy Wang (Jobu Tupaki): I got bored one day, and I put everything on a bagel. Everything. All my hopes and dreams, my old report cards, every breed of dog, every last personal ad on craigslist. Sesame. Poppy seed. Salt. And it collapsed in on itself. Because, you see, when you really put everything on a bagel, it becomes this. The truth.
Evelyn Wang: What is the truth?
Joy Wang (Jobu Tupaki): Nothing matters.
Evelyn Wang: No, Joy. You don’t believe that.
Joy Wang (Jobu Tupaki): Feels nice, doesn’t it? If nothing matters, then all the pain and guilt you feel for making nothing of your life, it goes away. Sucked into a bagel.
Alpha Gong Gong: I’m not your father. At least not the one you know. I am Alpha Gong Gong.
Evelyn Wang: Not you too!
Evelyn Wang: There is no way I am the Evelyn you are looking for.
Alpha Waymond Wang: No, I see it so clearly.
Evelyn Wang: See what? I’m no good at anything.
Alpha Waymond Wang: Exactly.
'When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I've learned to survive through everything.' - CEO Waymond Wang (Everything Everywhere All at Once) Share on X
Alpha Waymond Wang: I’ve seen thousands of Evelyns, but never an Evelyn like you. You have so many goals you never finished, dreams you never followed. You’re living your worst you.
Evelyn Wang: I cannot be the worst. What about that hot dog one?
Alpha Waymond Wang: No. Can’t you see? Every failure here branched off into a success for another Evelyn in another life. Most people only have a few significant alternate life paths so close to them. But you, here, you’re capable of anything because you’re so bad at everything.
Trailer: