Last night I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once. It has been on my watch list since the moment I saw the trailer. Asian-centric movies with superhero themes? I’m in. Plus, I’ve always been a fanboy of Michelle Yeoh and her acting.

The movie was marvelous as expected. My friend who watched with me gave it a score of 6.5/10 because everything was too symbolic. I personally gave it an 8.5/10, first of all due to the cinematography and animation (the scene where they did a roulette on hundreds of versions of Evelyn? i mean how many hours of work was done just for that scene?? costume designs, brainstorming the ideas, etc.). And that’s just on a technical level. The randomness and absurdity of the movies were just 10/10 on its own bracket. On top of it, I loved how they bring this Asian-centric movie with a very progressive influence, whilst not forgetting the taboo, the generational gap, and the cultural differences that the characters experience.

The 1.5 missing points from my score were just from my lack of understanding of some of the symbolism that the movie brought. Some scenes can be very confusing, especially at the start and because everything was happening so fast, you didn’t have time to digest what a scene was actually about before having to catch up on the next one. But towards the second half of the movie, I felt like things started slowing down and you can actually start connecting the dots. In the end, coming from someone who has been reading and watching a lot of philosophy recently, I think I have come to the conclusion that the premise of the movie is to make your own meaning out of it. Because in the end nothing matters and you’re the one to decide what matters. Here are some of the cherries that I picked from the show:

1. A battle with the insignificance of life

After exploring all the alternate universes and experiencing all the different versions of herself and her relationships with her family, Jobu Tupaki decided to destroy the multiverses. This to me resembled depression due to having experienced everything one thinks one could experience in life. Or having explored different relationships and the could-have-beens. And finding that in the end, they lead to the same disappointment. No matter how much something can bring you the highs, one day they will become stale or something will take them away from you.

Such is life, we as human beings constantly look for something that excites us, that lights a fire in our soul. But once we have attained them, a question always appears in the back of our minds. “Now what?”. Then we look for something else. Then after a while, the fire gets put out again. You would think, well maybe go for something everlasting, that will leave an impact in the world so that you can feel the fire and people could experience it and radiate the heat back to you. I thought so too. As a teenager, I always thought “what can I do to leave a mark?”, to contribute to this world. But as I continued to carry that thought with me growing up, I then started to question whether everything is worth it. If I end up contributing to the world and being remembered, then what? People will enjoy my contribution and remember me as a name in the history book alongside thousands of other names who managed to do such-level deeds in life. But then what?

Having experienced everything in life, Jobu Tupaki came to the conclusion that in the end, her existence is insignificant in the vast universe. We can see in real-life how many celebrities, inventors, and people who we deem “successful” and “happy” end up in the deep end. Whether it’s dealing with drug abuse (which is very much represented in this movie by the trippy visuals and alternate realities that Jobu Tupaki and Evelyn can explore with the snap of her fingers) or suicidal tendencies (the bagel).

This point sounds depressing and feels very much like a negative view and outlook on life. And it significantly leads to my second point that..

2. Nothing matters. But that also means you can make your own meaning.

Evelyn was almost carried away with this fact. She knew very well within herself before all of this happened that life is just about doing what she needs to do. Just like how other people do it. Life is such a template for many people and most of us are just a part of the current. This amplified as she gained the ability to explore the different versions of her and learnt that in all the other alternate universes that she could have lived, ultimately the same thing will happen: she will face disappointments, deal with relationship issues, and doing things just for the sake of doing things. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy as she decided to recklessly ruin things just for the sake of ruining things. She decided that nothing mattered, so might as well let everything in her life falter. But the love from Waymond snapped her out of it and led her to decide what she wanted to matter: kindness and love.

As she embedded this meaning, she started embracing herself and did what she wanted to do with her powers- in her own way. Even when she’s in the universe where she’s a piece of rock and is not supposed to move- she moves, guided by the meaning she held onto: the love she had for her daughter.

I think in the end, the movie is trying to teach us that it doesn’t matter how “successful” you are (and that is up for subjective interpretation). Without certain values or meaning that you decide for yourselves, you are just chemicals. Atoms and particles that walk around on earth to support the narrative of homo sapiens and their evolution. But once you discover and decide what matters to you and hold them dear as you walk through life, “significance” to the world doesn’t matter as much as your significance to yourself anymore. Whether it’s love, stability, adventure, progression, or really anything that transcends words, objects, or adjectives. You decide what you want to matter and the things that you want to matter, matter.

I highly suggest that you watch this clip about “Individuation”, a piece of philosophy from Carl Jung, a Freudian psychologist:

3. Getting through it with the people you love and who love you

And even after all that..the idea that your life is insignificant can still haunt you in the back of your mind. It can be a constant battle for some people. And as much as we might like to deny it (I very much do), having people who love us and who we love might make getting through it so much easier. They don’t have to be a romantic partner. We are all wanderers on this earth, constantly searching for meaning. The idea of having someone willing to go through it with you, and remind you why you matter to them feels like a warm and safe sanctuary amid this huge, crazy world.

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I personally felt like the movie touched me on a subconscious level. Although I could write these things, there are some things that I just can’t express with words but my mind felt like it understood. The ego-death that I experienced through my substance experience contributed to the deciphering process. This manifested in heaps of tears being shed in silence in the second half of the movie. As someone who’s been battling with some dark cloud over his head recently, I felt like I could subconsciously relate in some ways.

All in all, whether you’re just in for some comedic action, burst some laugh, or reflect on existentialism and the insignificance of human life, give this movie a go. If you don’t think the movie makes sense, at least you will have a trippy visual pleasure.

Okay, I need to go back to doing my assignments. Hope you enjoyed my review and give the movie a watch!