«Everything at the same time everywhere»: a reflection on existence

Chaotic, wonderful, a cinematic absurdity, a creative symphony and even a galactic-cerebral nightmare. TO Everything at once everywhere, the big winner of the 2023 Oscars, is defined in many ways. However, beyond the apparent surrealism of the latest production by the duo made up of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, there is a very solid psychological and moral basis.

This is the bittersweet story of a woman who has not fulfilled her dreams. It is the struggle of an immigrant family to survive in the chaotic world of the 21st century and also a reflection on relationships, depression and our existence. The audiovisual adventure covered in metaphysics stands as a suggestive exercise for our neurons that is well worth analyzing.

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) zigzags through several universes until she becomes aware of her own existence and needs.

Everything at once everywhere: the story of Evelyn Wang

The film that, to the surprise of many, triumphed at the last Oscar gala, belongs to the independent studio A24. When Everything at once everywhere It premiered in 2022, at the S festivalouth by southwest of the United States, nobody gave much for that crazy comedy that mixes infinite genres and subjects the viewer to intense overstimulation.

However, he did not stop accumulating awards (Critics Choice; Union of Producers, Directors, Screenwriters and Actors and, later, 7 statuettes from the Academy). The story centers on Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese-American immigrant who runs a laundromat and whose personal existence is on the rocks at times. He is not passionate about her life and her failed dreams weigh too much.

Making the threat, she tries to live up to her father’s demands, she has a husband with whom she always argues and a daughter whom she does not understand. And this last aspect, The lack of mother-daughter harmony is, without a doubt, the problem that torments Evelyn the most.. Everything gets complicated when she must meet with Deirdre (Jamie Lee-Curtis), an employee of the tax service.

What lessons does the film transmit to us?

The film crosses the threshold of the astonishing at the moment when Evelyn Wang goes, precisely, to that Treasury office. Suddenly, The space-time balance is broken and she discovers that her shy husband is, in reality, a space agent, someone who urges her to fight against a supposed demon: Jobu Tupaki.. The scene around her suddenly becomes a martial arts scene. But it’s just the beginning.

The amazing thing is that all possible genres and all existing emotions are combined in a single film. Its protagonist will jump and zigzag from one universe to another to experience dozens of events from his own life.. Evelyn will cross various realities and, many of them, remind her of what she once wanted to be: movie star, singer, chef, etc.

This crossroads between the surreal and the transcendent, between the profane and the profound, generates several metaphors, but only one stands out. The one that has to do with mental health and we analyze it below.

1. Life is options: some that we choose and others that we let go

The entire cosmogenesis that surrounds the central character orbits around an idea: people are those decisions that, at a given moment, we make. However, Not all the directions we choose give us happiness. Thus, something we perceive in the character skillfully played by Michelle Yeoh is disappointment.

It has not fulfilled the “American dream” that many Chinese immigrants long for when they arrive in the United States. In her father’s eyes, she is little more than a failure. Her marriage is also about to break up, as is her bond with her daughter.

2. The monster of depression

Everything at once everywhere resonates significantly in the mental health universe. One of the tasks that the character of Evelyn has in each universe is to confront a supposed demon. A being that threatens to break the known, the existing reality. But the adverse being that this woman, disenchanted with her life, faces is someone familiar to her.

The demon Jobu Tupaki is his daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), who is about to fall into the abyss of depression and even suicide. This is a very common phenomenon among the Chinese immigrant population in the United States. Research such as those carried out at Harvard Medical School in 2021 highlights how this group often lacks the vocabulary to express their difficult emotions.

This film is a sensational metaphor alluding to the fact that, under the crust of stress and the chaos of everyday life, there is hidden suffering that we do not know how to see. Like what a mother does not appreciate in her own daughter, because she herself also deals with her existential discomfort.

3. Intergenerational traumas

Something we frequently witness is how Evelyn constantly disapproves of Joy. She criticizes her life, her decisions and even her sexual orientation. Nevertheless, The way the protagonist treats her daughter has to do, in turn, with the way her father treated her.. Intergenerational trauma is one more variable that navigates this game of multiverses.

Her father is that demanding, authoritarian figure who disowned her when she chose to marry Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) and go to the United States. The fact of not having had—apparently—success in her life shapes in Evelyn that discomfort that she now projects onto her own daughter.

In some way, as explained to us in the work of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, these traumatic experiences to which parents are exposed can also affect their children. Everything at once everywhere He takes it as a metaphor.

Family and the mother-daughter relationship are the most powerful elements in “Everything at Once Everywhere.”

4. Love and radical acceptance

All the metaphysical games and space-time twists end and find their harmony when Evelyn hugs the monster (her daughter). This is how he stops her self-destruction, as well as rescues her from the void to accept her, to show her his love. Life is full of options, but in the midst of that amalgam of possibilities, we all have the power to decide what we want, to sustain what gives us meaning and strength. Like, for example, the family.

Appreciate the background of the work

Maybe Everything at the same time everywhere is dispersed excessively in technical artifices and narrative madness. In fact, there are many viewers who, encouraged by her numerous awards and recognitions, choose to watch it only to be disappointed after a few minutes. However, it is worth being patient and appreciating the luminous and inspiring background of the film. You just have to find the point of calm in the midst of chaos. As in life itself.

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