I've been doing these Reactions for a while now. If I had to come up with a mission statement, it's not to tell people what they should or shouldn't see. That aspect is nice, but really, I'm trying to figure out why I like things. And that answer is a lot simpler than I like to believe. When I think about most of my favorite movies, they say "life might suck, but make the best out of it". Stranger Than Fiction is about a man who finds out his life is out of his control, so he tries to make the most of it. About Time is about a guy with the power to travel through time who uses it to figure out how to live his life well enough not to need that power. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about two people who know their story leads to heartbreak but would rather fight the inevitable than give up. I have many neuroses to unpack, but it doesn't take a trained professional to see that I want to get out of my own way and try to be happy. So, let's just say I just came out of a meaningful viewing experience.
It’s hard to explain what Everything Everywhere All At Once is about. A Chinese-American woman, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), has a somewhat underwhelming life. Her laundromat is failing. Her daughter (Stephanie Hsu) doesn’t really like her. Evelyn’s husband (Ke Huy Quan), unbeknownst to her, is seriously considering divorce. Her life isn’t what she imagined. However, one day she is pulled into a battle to save the multiverse. You see, Evelyn from a different universe discovered a way to travel to the other universes. Her own hubris fractured the multi-verse, and now everyone is left to pick up the pieces. The Evelyn in this universe they believe is the one to fix everything. And none of what I just said captures how incredibly weird it all is. They have technology that allows them to tap into skills from over universes ranging from kung fu to hot dog fingers. They have to preform odd tasks like eating chapstick to access these skills. And when one accesses these skills, they are technically living both existences at the same time. The most I can really do here is convince you that the core story is touching and poignant. Otherwise, I can only tell you to expect many, many weird flourishes throughout while never getting overwhelmed with exposition.
Ultimately, EEAaO (I’m done typing the full title) is about reaching your potential and seeing the best life available to you. I was definitely tearing up toward the end, and if I described what was on screen while I was doing that, I’d sound unwell. And it’s all accomplished by a group of really strong performances. Yeoh has earned the lion’s share of the praise so far, because she is great. It’s a performance that asks her to literally wear many hats. I love that Michelle Yeoh in her 50s is game for anything. I’m joining this “An Oscar Nomination for Michelle Yeoh” bandwagon as early as possible. She’s not alone though. Stephanie Hsu gives a star performance. She has so much swagger in some of the silliest costumes. It’s the kind of performance you aren’t sure anyone can give until they actually do it. It’s hard to make aggressive nihilism sympathetic. Ke Huy Quan…yes, Short Round from Temple of Doom. Data from The Goonies. A man with three acting credits in the 2000s. I don’t know what he’s been up to all this time, but he’s about to show up in a lot more movies if he wants. He becomes the beating heart of this movie. Then there’s Jamie Lee Curtis as the IRS auditor and more. She doesn’t have to go this hard in the movie, but god bless her for doing so.
The way this entire cast turn themselves over to the directors in this is so impressive. I saw the Daniels’ first film Swiss Army Man, and I wasn’t super impressed. It struck me as inspired weirdness in search of a story worth telling. They are filmmakers who need the full trust of their cast to do what they do. EEAaO keeps the weirdness of Swiss Army Man. In fact, it amps it up, but this time they found a story to match it. It reminded me a lot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That’s a movie that couldn’t possibly work as well on the page as on the screen. It’s too cerebral and dependent on how it’s visualized. It’s easy to see how Eternal Sunshine could’ve been an impenetrable mess. The same goes with EEAaO. They master so many genres, weird ideas, and weirder visuals while never losing track of the story they want to tell. Most films, even ones I love, I could see how I could’ve come up with that. I can reverse-engineer them. Not EEAaO. This movie is truly unique in all the right ways.
I worry that I may be overpraising the movie. I can see someone not liking it. There’s a lot going on throughout. If you don’t gel with the humor, the movie can look like a complete mess. I’m sure there are some logic gaps in there that I wasn’t interested in finding. It definitely feels like this movie is moving into an overhyped stage where people going in will expect something transcendent. For me though, I came in with just the right amount of expectations to love the shit out of this crazy, overwhelming, slightly crude, inventive movie.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment