The multiverse takes a different angle in Everything Everywhere All at Once from A24. Michelle Yeoh top lines the film and portrays Evelyn Quan Wang, an exhausted Chinese American woman who cannot seem to finish her taxes. Her marriage to Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) is on the rocks, and she is having trouble accepting her daughter Joy’s (Stephanie Hsu) same-sex relationship.
While at a tax appointment with IRS agent Deidre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis), something mysterious happens to Waymond and an interdimensional rupture unravels reality. This forces Evelyn into an unlikely hero who must channel her newfound powers to fight bizarre and bewildering dangers from the multiverse as the world’s fate is uncertain.
That is all you need to know about Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I would advise viewers to go into the film blind. Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as “Daniels”) write and direct the film, combining numerous film genres. Science fiction, martial arts action, and family all come together to deliver one of the most unique and original films of 2022.
Everyone in the film gets a moment to shine, and in viewing the movie with my son, I had a smile on my face the entire time. The movie moves at a fast pace, yet it never feels like it is trying to accomplish too much. The Daniels are confident in the audience’s ability to handle the film’s frantic approach, so they never back down from any of its outlandish notions.
Sure to become a cult classic and referenced for years to come, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a must-see.
Final Grade: A
Two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz collaborates with genre director Simon West on “Old Guy,” which The Avenue produces. Greg Jonson writes the screenplay.
Director Martin Campbell delivers another female-led action film in Cleaner from Lionsgate. Matthew Orton, Simon Uttley, and Paul Andrew Williams pen the film’s screenplay. Set in present-day London, a group of radical activists led by Marcus (Clive Owen) takes over an energy company’s annual gala, seizing 300 hostages to expose the hosts’ corruption.
After gaining some experience with a short film and a documentary, director Craig Tuohy shifts to the horror genre for his feature debut, “Everyone Is Going to Die,” produced by Saban Films. The story follows British real estate entrepreneur Daniel (played by Brad Moore), who seems to have it all: wealth and a young girlfriend named Julie (Marina Lazaris). However, due to his infidelity, he now has a strained relationship with his daughter Imogen (Gledisa Arthur).