Michelle Yeoh and Everything at Once
There are films one admires, and films that hit home. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” belongs to the second kind for me. That is mostly down to one woman.
A laundromat owner saves the multiverse
Evelyn Wang, a Chinese immigrant in the US, runs a laundromat. She is in the middle of a tax audit, her marriage is crumbling, and she can no longer reach her daughter Joy. Then she learns that there are countless versions of her life – and that she must travel through these parallel universes to stop an all-powerful adversary. The adversary is a version of her own daughter.
In one of these universes, Evelyn has hot dogs for fingers. In Vienna, the first question would be: mustard or horseradish?
It sounds like chaos. It is chaos. But chaos with a heart: beneath all the worlds, fights and absurdities, the film tells of a mother who can no longer reach her child.
Readers of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” know the question of life, the universe and everything. Douglas Adams answered it with 42. The Daniels answer with an everything bagel.
It was made by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known as “the Daniels”, and was only their second feature. It opened in March 2022, took more than 100 million dollars and helped arthouse cinemas back on their feet after two years of pandemic.
Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh began her career in Hong Kong with martial arts films such as “Yes, Madam” and “Police Story 3: Supercop”, performing her own stunts. Then came the Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies”, and she became an international star with “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” – a film that has stayed with me ever since.
In “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, she plays around 70 characters by The Hollywood Reporter’s count: comic, dramatic, fighting, often in the same scene. The film even plays with her own career, using footage of Yeoh at real premieres such as “Crazy Rich Asians”.
At the Oscars in March 2023, Michelle Yeoh was 60. The strength, comedy and physical command with which she carries this role still impress me.
Sixty years old. Around seventy characters. Elsewhere, people retire at that age.
Seven Oscars
At the 95th Academy Awards came a clean sweep: seven Oscars, for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, and for Michelle Yeoh as Best Actress, Ke Huy Quan as Supporting Actor and Jamie Lee Curtis as Supporting Actress. It beat box office hits such as “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” as well as critics’ favourites such as “Tár” and “The Banshees of Inisherin”. For the studio A24, it was the second Best Picture after “Moonlight”.
Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress, and only the second woman of colour in the category after Halle Berry. Yeoh and Quan were also the first actors to win for playing Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking characters.
“Ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime.” – Michelle Yeoh in her acceptance speech
And what this has to do with Korea
The film is not Korean. It tells of a Chinese family in America. But it stands in a line: three years earlier, “Parasite” had become the first film not in English to win Best Picture. In 2023, several Asian actors won in the same year for the first time.
There is no need to call it a trend. It is fair to read it as a sign.
For me, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” remains above all a film about a mother and her daughter. And about an actress who shows, at sixty, what is possible.