Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
- The studio almost pulled funding for Everything Everywhere All at Once midway through the shoot, convinced that the general audience wouldn't connect with the highly unconventional tone.
- The most famous, quotable line in Everything Everywhere All at Once wasn't actually in the script; it was completely improvised by the actor on the third take.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a 2022 American absurdist comedy-drama directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels. Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn Wang, a Chinese-American immigrant and exhausted laundromat owner who, during an IRS audit, discovers she can access the skills and memories of her counterparts in parallel universes. Evelyn must use these multiverse abilities to fight a nihilistic force threatening to destroy all reality โ a force that turns out to be her own daughter Joy, played by Stephanie Hsu, whose despair at the meaninglessness of infinite possibilities has transformed her into the destructive entity Jobu Tupaki.
Everything Everywhere All at Once was a creative supernova โ the Daniels combined martial arts action, absurdist comedy, immigrant family drama, and existential philosophy into a film that featured hot dog fingers, a sentient rock with googly eyes, a raccoon puppet controlling a chef Ratatouille-style, and one of the most emotionally devastating mother-daughter reconciliations in cinema, all within the same narrative. Michelle Yeoh's career-defining performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first Asian woman to win the prize. Ke Huy Quan, returning to acting after a 20-year absence, won Best Supporting Actor.
The film swept the 2023 Oscars with seven wins including Best Picture and Best Director. It earned $141 million worldwide on a $25 million budget.
