EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022)

The hotly-anticipated multiverse film from A24 (not Marvel) is a true rollercoaster ride, as we follow an Asian-American mother and lesbian daughter trying to reconnect, throughout every reality in the multiverse.

It’s unclear how much we’re supposed to interpret the story as real and how much as metaphor, but the film itself plays out as a kung fu action movie. Veteran Michelle Yeoh holds her own as always, while newcomer Stephanie Hsu is more than a match for her as her daughter Joy, becoming the unstoppable evil force that put everything — literally everything — on a bagel, which now threatens to suck the entire multiverse into nihilistic oblivion.

The visual splendour is undeniable, as we rocket from a rundown IRS office, to the glamour of a film premiere, and a kung fu forest, with supernatural kicks and punches all the way. The wacky music (Son Lux) takes us through dissonant orchestral minimalism, phat dubstep beats, and kung fu movie pastiche.

Do we really need the two and a half hours runtime? Probably, because we become invested in a few of the limitless universes, and it needs time to give everything closure. The film also honours the characters with enough real-time, non-sci-fi family drama, in order for us to connect with them in what we might call “reality”. However, the relentlessly buzzy aesthetic and impossibly epic scale becomes a bit difficult to deal with by the end.

Everything Everywhere All at Once has an American nationwide release on 8 April 2022, and in the UK on 13 May 2022.

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