Everything Everywhere All at Once and the Importance of Choice

Inspired by the infinite internet, the science-fiction film elevates the importance of choice.

Joy Wang (Stephanie Hsu) as Jobu Tupaki in Everything Everywhere All at Once, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (2022). Via The Conversation.

WARNING: This article mentions spoilers, as well as themes of depression and suicide.

Official poster for *Everything Everywhere All at Once* by illustrator James Jean (2022). Via the artist’s website.

Joy (Stephanie Hsu), Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), and Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan) in *Everything Everywhere All at Onc*e, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (2022). Via *USA Today.*

Intro

A few weeks ago, I finally had the opportunity to see the much-lauded Everything Everywhere All at Once, starring Michelle Yeoh. It was truly everything, everywhere, on all my social media feeds, all at once.

After seeing rave reviews by both friends and strangers online, I was desperate to watch it. The science-fiction film first caught my attention on Instagram, promoted by my favorite illustrator James Jean, who created one of the official posters for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Unfortunately, the film wasn’t released here in Japan until March of 2023, a full year after initial US screenings. Furthermore, the theater only offered Japanese subtitles for the bilingual film. Though I lost the dialogue in Mandarin and Cantonese, I was nevertheless mesmerized by the heartfelt performances, daring costume design, and thrilling fight choreography, as well as the frenetic editing and soundtrack (by yet another favorite, experimental band Son Lux). In short, it far exceeded my expectations.

While visually spectacular, the plot of EEAAO is deceptively simple: an overworked immigrant mother must reconnect with her suicidal lesbian daughter. Protagonist Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) learns that her husband’s absurdist life-view of unconditional kindness is the antidote to her daughter’s nihilism.

As a queer first-generation American with his own struggles of depression, the film resonated with me deeply. It was profoundly beautiful and deeply life-affirming.

Everything Everywhere All at Once has gone to earn over $50 million globally, and is now considered “the most awarded film in history.” Clearly, it has tapped into something powerful.

A year following its release, much has been written about Everything Everywhere All at Once. The film has been analyzed from countless angles, from philosophy, to parenthood, to ethnicity, but I was most fascinated by the film’s suggestion of infinite possibility and the importance of choice.

Internet

Across disciplines, many people have attempted to digest the everything-ness of the internet in their own ways, like late artist Michael Majerus, comedian Bo Burnham, or rapper Childish Gambino (Donald Glover).

YouTuber Thomas Flight calls Everything Everywhere All at Once “one of the first true post-internet films.” In the online channel Cinema Therapy film director Alan Seawright observes, “this is the most movie ever in a movie.” Playing with set design, costume, and aspect ratios, EEAAO succeeds in capturing the relentless absurdity of being “Extremely online.”

EEAAO co-director Daniel Scheinert explains, “we wanted the maximalism of the movie to connect with what it’s like to scroll through an infinite amount of stuff, which is something we’re all doing too much.”

In the internet age, we are exposed to a near-limitless amount of information. Every single minute, an average 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube alone.

“Seeing so much of the world so quickly can trigger a sort of psychological paradigm shift,” argues Flight, adding, “it can leave you stuck in a state of overwhelm, constantly considering alternative lifepaths, constantly comparing your own experience to the experience of others, unable to hold a consistent view of what’s real or what is important.”

“Everything happens so much”, tweet, by user @Horse_ebooks (2012). Via Twitter.

“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH ALL THIS FUTURE?”, Gucci silk scarf, 2017, by Coco Capitán, hung in my Japan apartment (2023). Photo by Danny With Love.

Possibility

For the vast majority of human history, people were conditioned to believe they were born to be slaves, peasants, or workers. It’s only within the last few centuries — after the death of predestination — that people began to consider alternate possibilities, ultimately giving birth to the idea of parallel universes.

The concept of the “multiverse” is a relatively new idea, first coined in 1895 by the American philosopher William James, inspired by the plasticity of nature. The term evolved to include cosmology, religion, psychology, and philosophy.

In every second on earth, there are some 8,000,000,000 people experiencing the world in a unique way. And through the internet, humanity’s digital collective consciousness, we can share in these moments. Online, we are subjected to seemingly infinite possibility. How can our one life compete with the total experiences of 8 billion people?

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, the smallest choices can splinter the cosmos, like suffering a series of paper-cuts or eating a tube of chapstick. Alpha Wang (Ke Huy Quan) enlists Evelyn to save the multiverse because he believes she is her own worst version, and therefore a person with infinite potential. Evelyn is captivated by her parallel identities, including a trained martial artist, operatic singer, and celebrated actress; initially, she views these conventionally-successful alternatives as proof that she squandered her life.

Marked receipts from *Everything Everywhere All at Once* (2022). Via A24 Auctions.

*Enso* (円相) [Zen Circle], hanging scroll, ink on paper, by Ryoryosai Koshuku (circa 17th-18th century). Via the Cornell University Museum (cropped).

Mindfulness

At the beginning of the film, Evelyn is detached and unfocused, stretched thin by her many responsibilities: her business audit, failing marriage, aging father, and estranged daughter. As Evelyn is first pulled into the multiverse, tax auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) asks, “Mrs. Wang, are you with us?”

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) wears a googly eye to signify her enlightenment through kindness, in *Everything Everywhere All at Once* (2022). Photo by Allyson Riggs and via Vogue (cropped).

Everything Everywhere All at Once is not an explicitly Buddhist film, but it’s obviously influenced by the practice. The film’s title is the very opposite of mindfulness, contrasted by meditative self-help books like Wherever You Go, There You Are (Jon Kabat-Zinn) or Be Here Now (Ram Dass) which focus on “the immediacy of being alive.”

According to the Buddha, “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live wisely and earnestly for the present.” This is a difficult task because, as argues neuroscientist Dean Buonomano, “The brain is a prediction device.”

The Buddha teaches that life is suffering but liberation is possible. Rather than enlightenment, antagonist Jobu Tupaki (Joy Wang) seeks to end suffering through death. She declares, “nothing matters.”

Along with every breed of dog, poppy seeds, and salt, her accomplishments, hopes, and dreams have been destroyed within an imploded ‘everything bagel.’

The circle is an important motif in Everything Everywhere All at Once, filled with whirling washing machines, marked receipts, and googly eyes. In Zen Buddhism, the enso (円相) [circle], painted in one uninterrupted gesture, combining both void and infinity, represents enlightenment.

Towards the end of the film, an enlightened Evelyn wears a googly dot as her third eye. In Hinduism, the third eye chakra is associated with intuition and the ability to make decisions. Writer Eric Ravenscraft concludes, “If nothing matters, then the only thing that can matter is what you choose.” Evelyn realizes her family matters above all else.

Decision Making

In the 1970s, American behavioral economist Herbert A. Simon coined the term “attention economy,” arguing that access to a growing “wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” The ensuing internet age has created a paralysis of choice as private companies seek to monetize our increasingly scarce and valuable attention.

Simon spent his life researching real-world decision making. He advocated “satisficing,” or making a satisfactory decision with minimum possible resources (such as time, information, material). In economics, this strategy is compared to risk versus reward.

Paradoxically, “satisficers” — people who settle for good enough — are generally happier than their perfectionist counterparts, or “maximisers.” American psychologist Barry Schwartz explains, “As a general rule, maximisers do better, but feel worse.”

I have often struggled with decision making. The world is so vast and overwhelming. Nearly every day, I ask myself, “What am I doing with my life?” Further questions arise, like, “Was I supposed to come to Japan, or stay in Texas? Should I go somewhere new? Should I still be a teacher? Should I return to a career in graphic design?” Watching videos of my friends’ joy and successes a continent away gives me physical sensations of pain.

The social-media-fueled anxiety known as “FOMO” (Fear Of Missing Out) was officially added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2013. That same year, a majority (56%) of social network users reported experiencing FOMO when offline. The phenomenon has dangerous real-world consequences, with a third of American teenagers admitting to using their phone while driving.

For our every action and inaction, there is an invisible opportunity cost, the loss of alternatives, wasted possibility. Ultimately, Everything Everywhere All at Once provokes a difficult question, “in a universe with near-infinite possibility, would you still choose to be yourself?”

Dan Beauchamp