Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.5

Everything Everywhere All At Once Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 9, 2022

Are there different rules for capitalization in various so-called "multi verses"? This may be a salient if not exactly pressing question, since in this universe, Lionsgate and A24 actually went to the trouble of having their public relations folks overtly ask that the "at" in the title of the film be capitalized, which according to several style books is verboten, or at least discouraged. That may seem like the very definition of minutiae, but as Everything Everywhere All At Once makes abundantly clear, even some supposed "trivialities" from day to day living can assume outsized importance under the right conditions. Everything Everywhere All At Once is one of those films which seemed to kind of erupt fully formed in the public consciousness like a veritable Venus from the half shell, but I personally started seeing a number of comments pass through my social media feeds from folks who had attended early screenings and who were basically all, to use a term of Art, gobsmacked. It's not hard to understand the visceral reactions Everything Everywhere All At Once seems to have engendered, for while the film's "the Daniels" (more about them in a moment) make a case that this is their riff on elements from Fight Club combined with a certain franchise by the Wachowskis, what the film may actually play more like is any number of films where a focal character "inhabits" either other people or other versions of themselves, admittedly courtesy of what might be cheekily termed a glitch in The Matrix. The film provides a perhaps career defining (in more ways than one) role (or, maybe more accurately, roles) for Michelle Yeoh, but it also offers a real showcase for a wonderful comic performance from Jamie Lee Curtis, which I personally won't be surprised to see celebrated with a Best Supporting Actress nomination at next year's Academy Awards.

The underlying story here, despite a plot that gets increasingly gonzo and prismatic as it moves along, is really ultimately one of family dysfunction, within the context of a harried couple who own a perhaps faltering laundromat who have had the additional calamity of being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) seems to wear the pants in her relationship with milquetoast husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), but she's often gobsmacked herself by the vagaries of her existence, which include a doddering if still demanding father nicknamed Gong Gong (James Hong) and an apparently sweet if rebellious daughter named Joy (Stephanie Hsu). The film quickly if kind of discreetly alludes to the fact that Waymond wants a divorce and that Joy, who has kinda sorta come out to her parents, now wants them to accept her partner Becky (Tallie Medel), but Evelyn is simply too distracted to really pay attention, especially with the looming audit being undertaken, headed by nemesis IRS agent Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis).

As the Wangs enter the federal building elevator on their way to their meeting with Deirdre something weird happens to Waymond, who suddenly seems to become another version of himself and who quickly attempts to impart a perhaps bewildering array of information about alternate universes to a completely befuddled Evelyn. That results in one of the first comedic showstoppers of the film, where the fractious if banal audit gets "interrupted" by Evelyn's growing awareness that other realities are beginning to intrude on hers. Despite an increasingly byzantine screenplay by co-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the pair also responsible for the similarly bizarre if also completely different Swiss Army Man, things remain at least relatively clear as an underlying conceit that "this" Evelyn is, to borrow a concept from that aforementioned Wachowski enterprise, "the one" who may be able to avert a Universal catastrophe by defeating an arch villain named Jobu Tupaki, who it turns out is a malevolent (if ultimately just kind of misunderstood) version of Joy.

Now, that's the CliffsNotes version of Everything Everywhere All At Once, but that may be somewhat akin to summing up all of recorded history by saying "stuff happened". What starts cascading through the film are manifold "versions" of various characters and their relationships, often in quick vignettes that can almost play like old time vaudeville skits that might have ended with a blackout back in the day. The underlying story is one of Evelyn figuring out she's not quite as helpless as she might have initially thought, but it's also an examination of both a marriage and a parent - child relationship that is refracted through a completely peculiar and often hilariously surreal set of alternate realities.

The kind of interesting thing about Everything Everywhere All At Once is how it frankly revisits a number of tropes that have been doled out in various science fiction tinged offerings over the past years and/or decades, but still manages to feel remarkably fresh and even innovative. The film offers a number of what might be termed special effects comedic moments, and some of the writing is flat out hilarious, especially as things careen into territory that can only be termed hallucinogenic, but it's the performances (which include Jenny Slate as yet another quasi-nemesis) that really help to make the film click. At the end of the day and/or spacetime continuum, this may be the very definition of a shaggy dog (and/or dogs) story, but to mix species metaphors in an attempt to mimic "multi verses", it's often a whale of a lot of fun.

Everything Everywhere All At Once Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Everything Everywhere All At Once is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and A24 with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in a variety of aspect ratios, as is documented in some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. The IMDb lists the Arri Alexa Mini and a 4K DI as relevant data points. This is an often really impressive looking transfer, though there has been a lot of tweaking to the imagery, so that elements we normally address like detail levels, palette saturation and "grain" (whether digital or otherwise) can be hugely variant by design. The 1.85:1 sequences, which are supposedly "real life" (most of the time, anyway), offer some of the most consistently high detail levels and probably the most natural looking palette overall, even if that can be kind of dowdy, as in the IRS office. The "multi verses" are almost a carnival ride of different looks. There's some somewhat soft focus "movie star" material featuring Evelyn as a marquee item that is kind of diffusely lit and almost effulgently glowing, but then there is also some "flashback" material (in narrower aspect ratios) that looks like old home movies. The result is unavoidably heterogeneous, but it's also surprisingly organic feeling, in terms of everything (everywhere all at once) being woven together as a cohesive whole. This is another feature shot with Arri cameras where I personally wished things had been a little less murky in some of the most dimly lit material, a lot of which here is suffused with some teal grading that probably doesn't help support fine detail levels in any case.

Everything Everywhere All At Once Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Everything Everywhere All At Once features a spectacularly boisterous Dolby Atmos track that I'd personally rate as reference quality. In fact, when the first overpowering whoosh of LFE appears with the "Everything" intertitle, I suspect many will, like I did, actually startle from the sheer onslaught of the sound. The architecture of the sound design is appealingly vertical and horizontal in the Atmos mix, and once Evelyn starts channeling her martial arts maven, there is a veritable explosion of surround activity permeating the "traditional" channels as well as the Atmos channels. Evelyn's own "whooshing" through various realities also provides some fun, immersive panning effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Some of the Chinese (both Cantonese and Mandarin) moments have forced English subtitles, but there are optional English, Spanish and Mandarin subtitles for the entire film.

Everything Everywhere All At Once Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Writers / Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert


• Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Everything Everywhere All At Once (HD; 40:47) is an enjoyable piece that has its own "meta" and/or "multi" aspects. There are some good interviews and quite a bit of production data offered.


• Putting Everything on the Bagel: Cooking Up the Multiverse (HD; 10:03) features "the Daniels" and some of the principal cast discussing the project.


• Alpha Bits (HD; 11:23) shows some VFX breakdowns and other special effects wizardry, along with stunt choreography and the like.


• Deleted Scenes with Commentary (HD; 13:51) offers "the Daniels" offering some background and context.


• Outtakes (HD; 8:30)


• Music Visual (HD; 2:42) offers a vision of a flying donut, or more appropriately, bagel.


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:44)

Everything Everywhere All At Once Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Everything Everywhere All At Once may not be everyone's cup of tea (and/or THC, as the case may be), but I found it to be a whirlwind of fun and whimsy. Metaphysically the film is even more confounding than that famous Wachowski franchise, but this film has a much more prevalent sense of humor than any of Neo's adventures. Technical merits are first rate (especially some astounding audio), and the supplements very enjoyable. Highly recommended.