“Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” (Film Review w/ Spoiler Alert!)

I recently saw “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.”  It merited all the accolades it has received, including its seven Oscars.

The film’s story is about a day in the life of a Chinese immigrant family. It’s about the day the mother of the family, Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), awakened to her spiritual destiny through the power of kindness.

The awakening is precipitated by Evelyn’s terrible stress. Her laundromat business is being audited by a sadistic IRS agent named Deirdre Beaubeirdre who has it in for members of the Chinese community.

On top of that, Evelyn’s husband, Waymond, is suddenly seeking a divorce. He thinks she doesn’t appreciate him and regards him as weak and ineffective. For instance, instead of opposing and arguing with the IRS agent, he brings her cookies and cheerfully agrees with her outlandish demands. Evelyn can’t understand that.

Meanwhile, her elderly father, Gong-Gong, is demanding and unappreciative of his daughter. He makes no secret of the fact that he sees her as unfocused, underachieving, and afflicted with short attention span. Evelyn is still afraid of her father and waits on him hand and foot.

As for Evelyn’s daughter, Joy, she seems possessed by some kind of alien spirit. Part of it is that Joy is gay. She too is afraid of Gong-Gong and is reluctant to come out to her granddad. Evelyn doesn’t appreciate any of that either.

All of this leads to a huge psychological breakdown. It happens during a session with the IRS agent on the eve of the Chinese New Year. Suddenly, Evelyn loses focus altogether. In a matter of moments, she begins a series of vivid past life regressions. Eventually, she encounters previous incarnations and life on various planets in a multiverse of infinite dimensions. Among other forms, she sees herself as a karate master, a chef, a pizzeria sign-twirler, and a famous singer. In the end, she comes to realize that she has experienced everything in previous lives, so success or failure in her present embodiment doesn’t really matter.

Evelyn also meets an Alfa Male version of Waymond. He’s directive, powerful, resourceful, and gifted with unbelievable savoir-faire. He astonishes his wife as he resolves crisis after crisis involving escapes from a monstrous version of Ms. Beaubeirdre, diabolic apparitions of her possessed daughter, and even a homicidal incarnation of her own father.

Finally, Evelyn puts it all together. She realizes that her real-life version of Waymond possesses the strength of kindness that far surpasses the physical power of his Alfa counterpart. Adopting the attitude of non-Alfa Waymond enables her to reconcile with her daughter Joy just as Joy was about to move off into permanent estrangement from her mother. Waymond’s kindness even moves Gong-Gong to accept not only Joy’s sexuality, but even more importantly to recognize a new soft strength in his own daughter.

In the end, that’s the simple message of “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once:”

• The universe is much bigger than we think,
• And much more mysterious
• All of us have lived many lives,
• Filled with success and failure,
• On many other planets.
• What holds them all together is loving kindness,
• Which can overcome any evil, and form of violence.
• All of us have access to the simple power of kindness,
• In a NOW that enables experience of past, present, and future all at once.
• None of our incarnations is that important.
• So, we shouldn’t take them too seriously.

In summary, we all need to wake up to such truths. It’s good to be woke in that sense. In fact, such awakening is our common vocation.