The best way to describe “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is 神经病. Evelyn says this phrase multiple times, and for each it’s translated a little differently. Discourse over localization in translations aside, it’s true that the context changes the connotation ever so slightly. 神经病 directly refers to neuropathy or a mental disorder, but it can be used as a full sentence in and of itself. “神经病!” Evelyn mutters at Waymond (multiple times) as his personality takes a 180 from mild-mannered husband to war-hardened martial artist. “You’re crazy!”
This is where the phrase gets fun from the perspective of a Chinese American taking liberties with the Chinese language: the first word in 神经病, 神, primarily means “god.” It’s incorrect to say that Waymond, and soon Evelyn herself, have mental disorders that allow them to jump through space-time; it’s the fancy sci-fi tech, hosted on what looks like an iPhone 4, that lets them do that. But to say that they become close to gods? It fits.
In the first part of the film, Evelyn learns to traverse the cosmos in the blink of an eye. It’s in the title marketed to mainland Chinese audiences: 《瞬息全宇宙》, or, “In an Instant, the Entire Universe.” In the closing credits, an idiom appears next to the film’s title: “天马行空,” or, “a heavenly steed soaring across the skies.” It means to be unconstrained and powerful; bold and imaginative; one of a kind and out of this world. When the mirror cracks and you see what it means to have the ability to be any possibility in the multiverse, you understand how fitting each name is. The fragmentation splits Evelyn’s likeness into multiples, reflecting the ability she gains to be anything, anywhere, all at once. She travels through the many universes. She is creative and omnipotent. She becomes a god as strong as Jobu Tupaki, the all-powerful verse jumper who is trying to end it all.
The mirror fractures as Evelyn experiences all the lives she could have lived had she made those different choices, then shatters as Jobu Tupaki becomes Joy, Evelyn’s daughter. Though she believes she must fight against Jobu Tupaki to save Joy, Evelyn is her own foil. Joy is her daughter, but so is Jobu Tupaki in the way that all the alternate Evelyns are just different iterations of herself. She draws on those more successful other selves — the thriving and filial daughters to her own father — but after each verse jump, she must return to her life as a struggling business owner facing a tax audit and a divorce. Yet these struggles double as her strengths. She is the universe’s only chance to defeat Jobu Tupaki precisely because she is living her worst life and every other her is better; every other her has more.
Evelyn is a masterwork by Michelle Yeoh, who said that she cried upon reading a character that she’d been waiting for: a character that would give her the opportunity to show what she’s capable of, that would allow her “to be funny, to be real, to be sad.” Evelyn isn’t your traditional new adult sci-fi protagonist — she’s a middle-aged immigrant who runs a laundromat. She is, especially, an immigrant mother, and Joy is an immigrant’s daughter. Their relationship is the driving force of the film, made up of the pull and push of a mother and daughter who struggle to understand each other. They are the hallmark of many parent-child relationships, especially those of immigrants separated not just by age but by language and countries.
Evelyn is also a tribute to Michelle Yeoh, who plays a daughter and a mother and a wife, a business owner and a chef and an actress. “Everything Everywhere” uses footage from Yeoh’s own past as a Hong Kong stunting star, including videos of her smiling on the red carpet as cameras flash in her face as part of a montage depicting Evelyn’s rise to fame as an actress and martial artist in the life where she didn’t run away to America with Waymond. (“I saw my life without you in it. It was beautiful.” Ouch.) Yeoh has played the femme fatale to James Bond and Jackie Chan, even matching them stunt for stunt, and the female warrior in Ang Lee’s wuxia classic, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” She rose to fame in 1990s Hong Kong action cinema, whose transnational impact at the turn of the century finds representation in the martial arts Evelyn and Waymond fight with and in the style of the cinematography. Early Hong Kong filmscinema popularized having one protagonist take on multiple combatants at once by using various martial arts in longer takes with a high number of physical points of contact, something “Everything Everywhere” executes flawlessly.
The Daniels (directing duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) knew exactly what they were doing with “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” from the comedic breaks in tension to each line of Chinese in the dialogue. The second Evelyn starts code-switching in the beginning of the movie, you know that this will be a film representative of the Chinese immigrant experience. Throughout, you might notice some other things: the mixing up of pronouns in English (spoken Chinese does not differentiate genders), Waymond singing “恭喜恭喜” in the wreckage of their Chinese New Year party, and the way Evelyn never says “I love you” to her daughter but you never doubt it anyway. Evelyn is such a deeply flawed character who is crumbling under the weight of failure, who regrets and lashes out and refuses to meet people halfway. Yet we root for her still, we laugh and cry with her, and we experience everything just as she does.