Introduction

An award winning and groundbreaking film, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a movie for the history books. Nominated for eleven awards, the movie took home an astounding seven Oscars, including the first time in history for the First Asian Best Actress Award to Michelle Yeoh. The sci-fi and heart telling tale is a movie that pushed the boundaries of emotional storytelling. Split into three parts, the film is a call to adventure through the eyes of an Chinese-american immigrant family to save the multiverse. Evelyn Wang is struggling to keep up with her family, her laundry store, and her happiness. Everything seems to be at the tipping point as Evelyn can’t do anything right. As her, her husband Waymond, and her father Gong Gong go to get her taxes done, she is encountered with an alternate reality version of Waymond. Introduced to the multiverse, things can’t seem to get any weirder. The film happens everywhere, and all at once. 

Warning Spoilers Ahead!

Who does Jobu Tupaki symbolize?

Joy, Evelyn’s daughter, has an alternate reality version of herself, where in another world Evelyn pushes Joy through constant Verse Jumping. This is where Jobu Tupaki was born. Chaos is an understatement to describe her, she is the embodiment of a nihilistic view of things as throughout the film she can be seen doing a variety of chaotic actions, speaking subtle dark messages to Evelyn. Because of the experiments with Verse Jumping, Jobu Tupaki is now everywhere all at once, being nowhere and anywhere all existing as Evelyn’s daughter Joy. The film uses irony in the names to split these two defining characters apart. Joy means happiness and Jobu Tupaki in Chinese means Pocket Pistol, the differences are clear. 

What do the googly eyes mean?

In the film, viewers can see the different perspectives of life through the Wang family. Joy having a nihilistic view, Evelyn having a distracted view, Gong Gong having an older view, and Waymond having a positive view. The googly eyes throughout the film show us how Waymond’s perspective was always there, ready to be seen by Evelyn to save the multiverse, it was only until that moment when Waymond stands up for himself that Evelyn sees the solution. A good example of Evelyn taking a positive approach is when Joy and Evelyn sit at the edge of the cliff as rocks. Evelyn turns around and has a pair of googly eyes on, a literal change of perspective on life. 

The Everything Bagel

The movie symbolizes Joy’s intentions for ultimately destroying herself through the Bagel she creates. As she states, she put everything she could find onto one thing, and that thing turned into a bagel of dark abyss, sucking everything it comes into contact with. The film shows the bagel to be a black hole, capturing one’s soul when looking into it, as Evelyn does throughout the film, although she stares at the depth, she is not affected by it unlike the other members of Jobu Tupaki’s cult(which have characters throughout the film). The bagel is another way for viewers to see a literal void of a nihilistic view of life. 

Interesting Facts about the Film

Here are some interesting facts about the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

• The VFX for the film were done by a total of nine people, who none of which went to VFX school 
• Ke Huy Quan gives a reference to his Indiana Jones character: Short Round when yelling at Evelyn to “snap out of it!” The scene plays out exactly the same in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 
• Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu both stated that the rock universe was their favorite
• The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and became the most awarded Best Picture winner since Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
• The Daniels originally wrote the script with Jackie Chan in mind for the lead role
• The role of Jamie Lee Curtis: Deirdre Beaubeirdre was based on a stock photo of an IRS worker. The picture shows an IRS worker with identical hairstyle, turtleneck, knit vest, glasses, and necklaces.
• Ke Huy Quan did most of his own students during the fanny pack fight
• The movie’s budget is estimated to be around 14.3 million dollars which is a relatively low amount for a seven Oscar movie. That amount is around 1/14th budget of Multiverse of Madness by Marvel.

How does it end?

Through the use of Waymond’s perspective of life, Evelyn can see that love is a solution instead of resorting to violence. She gives each side character in the multiverse a reason to be comforted which ultimately gives her a chance to grab Joy before she enters Bagel. In the end, the hero comes home and brings her elixir, love and understanding, and continues her life although she is in everything, everywhere, and all at once.