History Film / EverythingEverywhereAllAtOnce

Meet Evelyn Wang (Yeoh) is a middle-aged Chinese American laundromat owner who's trying to get her taxes done. One day, in the middle of a meeting about paperwork at the IRS office, she's suddenly whisked away and split between two alternate realities. It turns out that there's something threatening the very fate of what she discovers to be the multiverse, and she may be the only chance of stopping it. Peering into other universes, Evelyn can gain the experiences, memories, and emotions of her alternate selves and use those to her advantage. With her extraordinary new powers, she becomes an incredibly skilled -- albeit reluctant -- heroine.

Meet Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), a middle-aged Chinese-American laundromat owner who's trying to get her taxes done. One day, in the middle of a meeting about paperwork at the IRS office, she's suddenly whisked away and split between two alternate realities. It turns out that there's something threatening the very fate of what she discovers to be the multiverse, and she may be the only chance of stopping it. Peering into other universes, Evelyn can gain the experiences, memories, and emotions of her alternate selves and use those to her advantage. With her extraordinary new powers, she becomes an incredibly skilled -- albeit reluctant -- heroine.

* SeamlessScenery: During Jobu Tupaki and Evelyn'S confrontation in arc 2, they seamlessly move across different locations, from the laundromat to a forest and into a prison.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: A minor example, but the movie seems to imply that the IRS will at least consider all of Evelyn's business expenses if she files the appropriate paperwork. The Internal Revenue Code features a so-called "Hobby-loss Rule" specifically intended to prevent this kind of thing. That said, the Rule generally requires a business to be unprofitable for three of the past five years for expenses to be disallowed, so if they were feeling VERY generous they might have allowed Evelyn to get away with it once to avoid complete financial ruin.

The trailer can be viewed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nzbp4lkj2Y here.]]

Meet Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), a middle-aged Chinese American laundromat owner who's trying to get her taxes done. One day, in the middle of a meeting about paperwork at the IRS office, she's suddenly whisked away and split between two alternate realities. It turns out that there's something threatening the very fate of what she discovers to be the multiverse, and she may be the only chance of stopping it. Peering into other universes, Evelyn can gain the experiences, memories, and emotions of her alternate selves and use those to her advantage. With her extraordinary new powers, she becomes an incredibly skilled -- albeit reluctant -- heroine.

* NotQuiteTheRightThing: Evelyn comforts her daughter by saying that she knows about her depression and wants to help her. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:she believes that it's [[EvilCounterpart Jobu Tupaki's]] doing rather then it being her own emotional issues]].

** The "hot dog hands universe" is introduced with a flashback to the dawn of man that is a clear spoof of ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'''s famous opening sequence, complete with a [[StylisticSuck very off-key version]] of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" .

* SpaceWhaleAesop: The plot can fall into this. One of the messages is that in a big wide world, especially one where more and more discoveries are made to make a person feel more and more small, what you do doesn’t matter and that the things around you don’t matter as a result. But that doesn’t stop the Wangs from still having to pay their taxes the existence of the multiverse or not. So while the movie pushes a message that big discoveries make your situation feel more and more inconsequential, this is undermined by how the Wangs’ situation doesn’t change at all, the only thing changing being Evelyn’s view of her life. The message gets undermined because despite “nothing mattering”, the things around the characters still matters because they have to pay their taxes. No matter how big the world is, you still have to deal with what’s around you.

* SpaceWhaleAesop: The plot can fall into this. One of the messages is that in a big wide world, what you do doesn’t matter and that the things around you don’t matter as a result. But that doesn’t stop the Wong’s from still having to pay their taxes the existence of the multiverse or not. So while the movie pushes a message that big discoveries make your situation feel more and more inconsequential, this is undermined by how the Wongs’ situation doesn’t change at all, the only thing changing being Evelyn’s view of her life. The message gets undermined because despite “nothing mattering”, the things around the characters still matters because they have to pay their taxes.

* DownerEnding: InUniverse. [[spoiler:The second act ends with Evelyn's mind overloading, causing her to have a fatal seizure as Waymond desperately shouts for help. The film then fades out, and [[FakeOutFadeOut begins displaying credits]]... which are then revealed to belong to a film inside the universe where Evelyn is a movie star. As the audience begins to applaud, the Waymond of that reality [[LampshadeHanging comments that the ending was bold but quite sad]].]] That said, it's implied [[ExpendableAlternateUniverse that was the fate of that universe]], as the third act follows other timelines where Deidre wasn't punched in the face.

** The movie really lives up to its title because it has ''everything''. It's an absurdist BlackComedy, a heartfelt DysfunctionalFamily drama, a sci-fi adventure, [[ExistentialHorror a cosmic horror movie]], a [[AffectionateParody parody of martial art films]], a surreal MindScrew experiment, a poignant arthouse thriller, and a fun popcorn movie all at the same time.
** The film is a ScienceFiction story about a potential multiversal war ... but underneath the trappings of that, it's a FamilyDrama, where Evelyn tries to manage a struggling business, a failing marriage, and tense relationships with her father and daughter. And there is a strong comedic overtone, mostly of the surreal kind - the very "jump to an AlternateSelf" requires a character doing something that would be completely unexpected if not senseless.
** The various alternate universes provide extra genre toppings: Waymond can defeat a group of guards with nothing but a fanny pack as in comic martial arts films, many of the fights pull on {{wuxia}} and kung-fu films, while a whole universe is a straight-up homage to the animated comedy ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}''.

''Everything Everywhere All at Once'' is a 2022 absurdist comedy-drama multiversal-kung-fu film written and directed by [[Creator/TheDaniels Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert]] (aka DANIELS), who previously directed ''Film/SwissArmyMan''. The film stars Creator/MichelleYeoh, Creator/KeHuyQuan, Creator/StephanieHsu, Creator/JamesHong, Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, Creator/JennySlate and Creator/HarryShumJr

* CureYourGays: [[spoiler:Defied and parodied. Evelyn seems to think that Joy being gay is a result of her being possessed by Jobu Tupaki, which an exasperated Jobu disputes. Obviously, when Jobu is defeated, Joy remains gay.]]

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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eeaao_poster_print_by_james_jean_cropped.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"The universe is so much bigger than you realize."'']]
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* GenreMashup: The movie really lives up to its title because it has ''everything''. It's an absurdist BlackComedy, a heartfelt DysfunctionalFamily drama, a sci-fi adventure, [[ExistentialHorror a cosmic horror movie]], a [[AffectionateParody parody of martial art films]], a surreal MindScrew experiment, a poignant arthouse thriller, and a fun popcorn movie all at the same time.

* GoneHorriblyRight: [[spoiler:Alphaverse Evelyn hoped to exploit her Joy's high aptitude for Verse-Jumping by pushing her beyond her limits. She succeeded, but the mental strain of experiencing every alternate reality at the same time drove her insane and filled with a desire to corrupt Evelyn's mind the same way.]]

* {{Irony}}: Evelyn, who has some issues accepting her daughter's sexuality, [[spoiler:is married to a woman in another universe.]]
** Evelyn's first time at verse jumping is told to profess her genuine love for Deirdre in order to get the right skillset. Evelyn immediately goes "I can't do that!" [[spoiler:Same as above, she is married to Deirdre in the hot-dog finger universe]].

* JerkassHasAPoint: Gong Gong disowned his daughter Evelyn when she eloped with Waymond because Waymond is a "silly boy" and a poor choice for a husband. For Evelyn in the Protagonistverse, he was right, as she ended up in a laundromat with a life going nowhere. [[spoiler:{{Subverted|Trope}} in some of the other universes. In the Alphaverse, for instance, marrying Waymond leads to Evelyn becoming a genius scientist who discovers how to travel to different multiverses.]]
** Related to that, in the universe where Evelyn ends up rejecting Waymond's proposal, he somehow becomes [[spoiler:[[RightForTheWrongReasons the successful and suave CEO of a major corporation]].]]
* KickTheDog: After Evelyn [[spoiler:looks into the Bagel, she's swayed to Jobu Tupaki's nihilistic cause, and versions of Evelyn across the multiverse behave in cynical and cruel ways toward other people. One version of her sells out her husband to the IRS, signs the divorce papers, and breaks the laundromat windows with a bat; the movie star Evelyn coldly tells her Waymond that she would never have a happy life with him; hotdog finger Evelyn breaks up with her partner Deirdre; and the teppanyaki chef Evelyn reveals her rival chef's secret and gets Raccacoonie taken away by animal control.]]

* MundaneMadeAwesome: The directors have stated that part of their preparation for the movie was watching "competency porn," basically just videos of people doing fairly everyday things but doing them really, really ''well''. They liked the idea of showcasing these skills rather than just having Evelyn, for instance, tap into a CIA agent and turn into a generic super-badass. Half the skills Evelyn uses to fight are weird mundane utilities she gets from perfectly ordinary jobs, like a sign spinner or a hibachi cook.

* RefusalOfTheCall: Evelyn has a rather comedic response to Alpha Waymond's plea for help.
-->'''Evelyn:''' Very busy today, so no time to help you!

-->'''Evelyn:''' I want to lie here.

''Everything Everywhere All at Once'' is a 2022 absurdist comedy-drama film written and directed by [[Creator/TheDaniels Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert]] (aka DANIELS), who previously directed ''Film/SwissArmyMan''. The film stars Creator/MichelleYeoh, Creator/KeHuyQuan, Creator/StephanieHsu, Creator/JamesHong, Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, Creator/JennySlate and Creator/HarryShumJr

* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: The elder Wangs struggle in English, but are of course fully fluent in Chinese.

* CreatorCameo: Co-director Daniel Scheinert has a cameo as an IRS district manager. Co-director Daniel Kwan has two cameos, one as Evelyn's mugger in the Martial Arist Universe and one as the man who [[spoiler:gets sucked into the Everything Bagel when Jobu Tupaki activates it in the IRS office during the climax]].

* AspectRatioSwitch: The aspect ratio and film quality change all the time, marking not only jumps between universes, but also genres. For instance, the flashbacks to the time in China and arrival in America are captured in analog television's 4:3 ratio.

''Everything Everywhere All at Once'' is a 2022 fantasy action comedy film written and directed by [[Creator/TheDaniels Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert]] (aka DANIELS), who previously directed ''Film/SwissArmyMan''. The film stars Creator/MichelleYeoh, Creator/KeHuyQuan, Creator/StephanieHsu, Creator/JamesHong, Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, Creator/JennySlate and Creator/HarryShumJr

''Everything Everywhere All at Once'' is a 2022 fantasy action comedy film written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (aka DANIELS), who previously directed ''Film/SwissArmyMan''. The film stars Creator/MichelleYeoh, Creator/KeHuyQuan, Creator/StephanieHsu, Creator/JamesHong, Creator/JamieLeeCurtis, Creator/JennySlate and Creator/HarryShumJr

* BlackEyesOfEvil: This is used extensively to portray the corrupting power of [[spoiler:the Bagel]].

* DieHardOnAnX: Multiversal shenanigans aside, the majority of the plot for "our" Evelyn takes place in an IRS building invaded by multiversal demons and then the Alphaverse's goons: if she leaves, she gets arrested by the cops or slain by the Alphaverse soldiers ''at best'', and she has no way (at first) to fight them off. She has to learn a variety of skills (probable and improbable) via improvised objects both probable and improbable to fight off both forces, and even through the climax, still relies on usual tactics to neutralise her foes (like alleviating back pain and foot-piano playing).

* ExpendableAlternateUniverse: The film confronts the existential terror of a meaningless and pointless universe head-on, and the lesson it has for dealing with it is: you ignore it. Evelyn learns to ignore the multiverse and just concentrate on enjoying the little things she can in her own life. On top of that, while the Evelyn ''we'' see on screen may have a "happy" ending and the Jobu ''we'' see may be redeemed, by definition there exists an infinity of Evelyns and Jobus in other universes who are neither happy nor redeemed, but suffer an infinity of horrifying fates. We just don't see them because the film isn't about them. Of course the antidote remains same: just ignore them. Don't think about them; just focus on whatever happiness you can.