When I think about Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (“The Daniels”), there is one image in particular that comes to mind. It’s of the lonely man, passing away the nocturnal hours from the couch with [adult swim] on a TV with barely audible volume. Maybe they’re high. Maybe it’s just insomnia. Whatever it is, there is some kindred spirit there waiting to be surprised by a 2 AM airing of “Too Many Cooks.” Together, they watch the images of cutesy animation get warped into demonic hellscapes, laughing from confusion. During a commercial, they fill the awkward silence with a joke about butts, making up their own world. It may be the stupidest joke in the world, but they understand how well it cuts through the isolation, capturing something humane.
I cannot speak to whether The Daniels have actually turned on [adult swim], but it does feel like their ethos ranging from Swiss Army Man (2016) that launched their film career with an emotional story of farting corpses and remote control penises, to their latest Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) which more than lives up to the title. This is the work of the juvenile id thrown to reckless abandon. This is anarchy. It’s an endless collage of ideas that shouldn’t make sense together, the work of fast cuts that jangle the nerves worse than Four Loko. There is so much that feels impulsive, stupid, visually brash, and even offensive… and yet it’s the most beautiful representation of America in the modern era.
As filmmakers, The Daniels come across as the type of filmmakers who knows what it’s like to be up late, having their most vulnerable thoughts feel painful in their prominence clash with distractions, of videos that have little intellectual value. And yet, at the moment when you’re feeling most alone, ideas like hot dog fingers and googly eyes becomes the most beautiful image in the world. They break the tension, creating something beautiful that reminds you why being alive is such wonderful schadenfreude.
Enter Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), our unlikely protagonist. She’s burnt out on life, her big conflict revolving around potentially paying the tax audit on her laundromat. It’s a modest job, but it becomes clear with every new wrinkle how much she feels lost, insecure in how little she’s achieved in life. Even as her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) tries to fill the customers’ life with joy by plastering googly eyes on their laundry bags, she grows perturbed, desiring professionalism while under the watchful eye of her aging father Gong Gong (James Hong). With news of her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) bringing her girlfriend to the party that evening, everything begins to pile up. Suddenly the audit isn’t so much about her job as it is a lengthy inventory of everything she’s done throughout her life (or lack thereof).
Yes, it’s an existential crisis cranked up to 11 almost immediately. The Daniels deserve some applause for their ability to ramp up the absurdity so gradually that while it doesn’t make sense to explain here, it’s a visceral and immersive experience that makes total sense when lost in any second. What is the point of Evelyn fighting the tax auditor Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) in a stairwell while saying “I love you”? Trust me, the film answers that. More importantly, it does so in a way that allows for peak action to blend with the perfect subtext of Evelyn being unable to open up and express herself. It’s impossible for her to say those words to people she’s known for decades, who she has more intimacy with. And yet, here she needs it in order to survive, to break free of potential doom from crumbling under the metaphorical weight of a foreclosing life.
This may explain why the men in her life become the architects, creating a multiverse of infinite potential that they try to control. As much as this is a story of a married couple learning to trust each other, it’s also a story about breaking free of patriarchy, to believe in oneself, and live a life that’s fulfilling to the individual. It’s here that Evelyn gets glimpses into her other lives as a singer or actress, so full of greater options than a laundromat. The only downside is that this would involve never having married her husband. The joke is that she would be happier, but as the story progresses The Daniels ask if the sacrifice is really worth it or if it’s just inconsequential. For a story with limitless possibilities, the reality is that every new discovery is exciting and bittersweet with their promises. One can only follow a certain direction, leaving many others behind. Is there any perfect way to live life, or is the flawed perspective the greatest way to go?
In contrast to Evelyn is Joy, who conveys a 21st century ideology that is borderline sci-fi by design. At one point she is introduced walking a pig, carrying a bottle of vegan ketchup, and wielding dildos as weapons. She is consistently at odds with her surroundings, in some ways serving as a higher intellectual being. She is perceived as the other in Evelyn’s life, this impenetrable force who is scary both in her ability to shapeshift almost effortlessly but also as a reality of what following one’s dreams and being true to identity can actually achieve. Her charisma is enviable. Even in a world populated by people with hot dog fingers, her identity feels radical, and difficult to understand.
In this moment The Daniels have created something beautiful. While Evelyn is constantly battling the acceptance of her daughter’s identity, it is a form of queerness that feels authentic. Even within the sci-fi and fantasy, where pastry allegories reach new levels of bizarre, there is a celebration of her. She may be at odds, but she has a power all her own, so capable of surviving independently of everyone else. It’s a moment that ranges from stunning in its action to hilarious and even tragic. For as easily as The Daniels enter her perspective on artifice and titillation, it quickly becomes clear that underneath the ridiculousness is someone trying to reach out, to connect with their mother. She symbolizes both the potential of freedom but also the small ways that disconnection keeps them apart. It may be steeped in silliness, but if Evelyn can accept her unique ideology, there’s a good chance that she can accept the ways she loves and interacts both with the real world and the one that this dizzying kaleidoscope exists within.
This is how every character is, existing both within their reality and a perceived fantasy. Every decision reveals something small about their hopes and dreams, their failures and disappointments. The fight scenes create something that is inherently funny, but also tied to something familiar. For Evelyn, it’s fighting Dierdre in increasingly hackneyed ways, symbolizing her own potential demise. For Joy, it’s a form of identity that is far more explorative and lived in, finding everyone somehow rudimentary. When all of these ideas clash, they transport through different worlds with such ease. Even in its maximalist structure, there’s an intimacy between ideas, where Evelyn could stop in the middle of a crescendo and slap a tear out of the audience’s face. So much happens that it’s almost difficult to appreciate the layers, where underneath everything is a story about how everyone is pitted against each other in survival, the push to be accepted or accept their fate. Evelyn wants to live a thousand lives she never did. Waymond wants a happy marriage and to be seen as a masculine hero. Joy simply wants to be accepted. It’s the everyday struggle of America, questioning the freedoms that come with living there.
This is a film that manages to convey something both impenetrable and universal at the same time. Much like Thomas Pynchon and James Joyce before, the confounding tapestry is almost necessary to get to something more real. Evelyn is looking for truth in every piece of madness, discovering what does and doesn’t matter to her. Even at a near 2.5 hour length, it never loses steam, finding The Daniels consistently returning to themes and asking how absurd ideas become permanent crutches for us. They’re not always negative, but most present some form of weird identity that is honestly beautiful. The Daniels want to live in a world where everyone collides in a confetti-colored day-to-day. They want a place where cartoon aesthetics can be dropped in the middle of a dramatic arc and have it be something more thought provoking. After all, why does art exist but to help cope? Maybe it’s as simple as cheering someone up after a bad day. Maybe it’s the self-actualization that life can be different. Whatever it is, Everything Everywhere All At Once seeks to open the floodgates and does so in some of the most triumphant ways imaginable.
The most important thing is that even when the film reaches a fever pitch, when every sensory capability blows up like an atom bomb, The Daniels know how to pull back and ultimately find the heart in the rubble. I won’t go into what that is, but it’s the type of balancing act that makes everything worth it. There are some profoundly dumb gags in this, most of which will make you laugh with every recurrence, but it’s because of Evelyn’s integrity that they never lose their muster. Every irrelevant tangent feels purposeful, like a sugarcoated ballet building to that breathtaking finale, where suddenly the past and present, reality and fiction, and everything between fuses together to form a greater vision of the future. The Daniels have found something greater than we could ever achieve, and their god-tier writing reveals the potential of what their cinema can do over the next (hopefully) decades of output.
This is the type of film that transcends the typical fan base of Kwan and Scheinert. Even if every dirty impulse is on display, every piece clicks together to present something grander, serving as a philosophical lesson on how to navigate a 21st century world that is way too online. Everything is connected and it’s easy to lose identity within these limitless boundaries. The trick is finding yourself once you’re in there, somewhere amid the butt plugs and raccoons. In all sincerity, there is a heart so big somewhere towards the epicenter that even if it doesn’t look the same for everyone, it ends up saying a lot about their character. Whereas Everything Everywhere All at Once as a title can be read as a hyperbole unable to be achieved, The Daniels may have actually done that. It asks the question of what it means to be alive and, somewhere between all the shuffling, they find something crucial about humanity. There is a need to see beyond the ridiculous and recognize that even under the intimidating wardrobes, there is somebody just wanting to be seen for themselves. It's all a matter of feeling comfortable with letting your guard down long enough to let it in.
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