Everything Everywhere All at Once ★★★★

Daniels

Starring Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stéphanie Hsu, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis

In 2019 I’d never really considered the word, 'Multiverse'. Fast forward just a few years and that’s all the cinema seems to be talking about. Timelines this, Cumberbatch that; mainstream cinema is loving the plot bending nature and countless possibilities that a multiverse can bring. Among the Marvel madness though, even the more contemporary, indie projects are getting involved.

To put it simply, this movie is about a mother and Chinese immigrant, Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) who is swept away into countless versions of herself as she battles to save what’s important to her.

The opening set up of the story is beautiful. An immigrant family struggling to keep up with their life, their business and their child who has grown apart from them in more ways than one. By the time the multiverse is introduced we get a real sense of why Evelyn needs some different avenues in life. However, once that multiverse does kick in, things go absolutely mental.

There are some superb moments through the madness and many, many things that have never been seen on screen before. The Daniels have expertly crafted an experience that is wild and unrelenting; it truly is a rollercoaster and by the end I realised I’d barely blinked in about ninety minutes. There are some hilarious references mixed in, funny hot dogs and more sex toys than I’d bargained for.

To say this is exhausting is an understatement. For me, that’s the only thing that lets this down. I could have coped with a 90-minute movie, but as the second hour rolled in I was getting tired of the relentless energy and wanted more nuance. The emotional punch was there and it did move me, but it was a little too late in the game and I’d began to wonder when the whole thing would come to a close.

At the heart of this movie though is a mother struggling to connect with her daughter, and a daughter experiencing a different kind of life to that of her parents. It’s a multiverse story with punch and with heart. A multiverse story without the expectations that Marvel has on its shoulders and it’s all the more fun for it.

Everything Everywhere All at Oncc available in cinemas now