# Everything Everywhere All at Once Review: Family, Multiplied > Everything Everywhere All at Once is the Daniels' multiverse action comedy about a laundromat owner and her family. Exhausting at times, but inventive and moving. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-2022-review/ Published: 2026-07-23 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 4/5 ## Verdict Yes, with reservations. It is a wildly inventive, heartfelt ride for viewers who enjoy maximalist comedy, though its relentless pace and length will wear some out. ## Is Everything Everywhere All at Once worth watching? **Yes. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a gloriously strange, overflowing film that uses a multiverse action plot to tell a surprisingly tender story about a mother, a marriage and a daughter.** Michelle Yeoh gives the performance of her career, and the Daniels pack in more invention per minute than most blockbusters manage in a franchise. The reservation is sheer excess: at 140 minutes of near-constant visual overload, it can exhaust as much as it exhilarates. ## What is Everything Everywhere All at Once about? Evelyn Wang ([Michelle Yeoh](https://celluloidscore.com/stars/southeast-asia/malaysia/michelle-yeoh/)) is a Chinese immigrant running a struggling laundromat in America, overwhelmed by a tax audit, a gentle husband (Ke Huy Quan) she barely has time for, a visiting father (James Hong) whose approval she still craves, and a daughter (Stephanie Hsu) she cannot seem to reach. During a tense meeting with an unforgiving tax inspector (Jamie Lee Curtis), Evelyn is suddenly told that she is connected to countless other versions of herself in parallel universes, and that she alone can stop a threat to all of them. To do it, she must tap into the skills and memories of the lives she might have led. [Everything Everywhere All at Once](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-2022/) is written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known as the Daniels. It is an American production, mostly in English with substantial Mandarin and Cantonese, and runs 140 minutes. It won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress for Yeoh. ## Chaos with a family at its centre The genius of the film is that its biggest ideas are rooted in the smallest relationships. The multiverse is a playground for kung fu fights, absurd visual gags and genre parodies, but every leap between universes asks the same question: what if Evelyn's life had gone differently, and does the life she actually has mean anything? That makes the film a rare blockbuster-scale fantasy that is really about regret, immigration and intergenerational misunderstanding. The Daniels' imagination is boundless. The film jumps between styles, from martial arts action to melodrama to deadpan absurdity, and some of the silliest ideas, including a universe where humans have hot dogs for fingers, end up carrying real emotional weight. The editing, which won an Oscar, is the engine that keeps all these threads legible. ## Michelle Yeoh and a remarkable ensemble Yeoh is extraordinary, playing an exhausted, disappointed woman who becomes an action hero without ever losing the character's weariness or wit. The film makes deliberate use of her history as a martial arts star, and her performance ranges from slapstick to action to quiet heartbreak. Ke Huy Quan, returning to screen acting after decades away, gives the film its soul as Waymond, whose kindness is quietly radical; he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Stephanie Hsu is superb as the daughter, a performance of real range, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who also won an Oscar, is very funny as the relentless auditor. ## When more becomes too much The film's greatest strength is also its main weakness. It rarely pauses, and its constant barrage of jokes, fights and universes can be draining, particularly in the second half. Some of the humour is deliberately juvenile and will not work for everyone, and the length means the emotional climax arrives when some viewers have already run out of energy. It is a film that rewards those who surrender to it, and frustrates those who don't. ## Who should watch Everything Everywhere All at Once? It is ideal for viewers who enjoy genre mash-ups, bold [science fiction](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/sci-fi/) with a heart, martial arts comedy and stories about immigrant families and generational gaps. It works best when watched with full attention. The violence is frequent but comic and stylised, and there is strong language and some crude sexual humour, so it is best for older teenagers and adults. If you love its multiverse madness, try these: - [Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-2018/), another visually daring multiverse story where the real stakes are family and identity. - [Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-2023-review/), which pushes that animated experimentation even further. ## The verdict Everything Everywhere All at Once is exhausting, silly, sincere and genuinely unlike anything else. Its excess will wear on some viewers, but its heartfelt story of a family trying to see each other clearly, anchored by Michelle Yeoh's towering performance, makes it one of the most memorable films of its decade. **Rating: 4/5** ## Related title - [Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-2022/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)