Here’s the thing about music video directors making movies. Often you’ll end up with films that have great visuals, but the core storytelling – and performances of the cast – feel sidelined in the name of making something “cool”. And that’s just a gimmick.
I’m very pleased to say that this film is NOT one of those kinds of movies. I mean, it’s got dazzling levels of style, it’s chock full of insanely original visual trickery and it’s full to the brim with neat gimmicks and clever ideas. But underneath it all, beats a deeply human and resonant story that has Pixar-level emotional empathy (that’s a huge complement, by the way!)
The story is about a middle-aged woman, Evelyn Quan (Michelle Yeoh), who’s slowly being overwhelmed by life. She has a fractuous relationship with her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and her ageing father (the legendary James Hong). And her marriage to her long-suffering husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) is falling apart almost without her realising it – as an IRS audit of her business looms, threatening to take everything away from her. And then, um… the multiverse arrives on her doorstep. A threat spreading across an infinite number of parallel dimensions – and she must find out if she can truly be the one to fix it – and fix herself.
The solution to this turns out to involve some jaw-dropping kung fu, with fights on a Jackie-Chan-like level, as well as some mind-bending excursions through multiple versions of reality. It’s a film that quickly jumps between incredible action and excitement, to heart-wrenching emotion and quietly reflective introversion, to hilarious laugh-out-loud comedy. Sometimes all in the same scene! It’s insane and brilliant and almost certainly the best film I think I’m going to see this year. I can’t think of a film that’s hit every box like this for so long. Maybe Pixar at its very best. But this is certainly a lot more adult in its themes than that and the metaphors certainly hit home for grown-ups. I watched it with two other friends, and when the movie finished we just sat through all the end credits in silence. Not because we expected a post-credits sequence (there isn’t one) – but we just needed to absorb what we’d seen. It’s almost overwhelming on every level. An intense but cathartic experience. God, I cried, many times. it’s so emotional.
So, yes. A24 does it again. And Daniels (Daniel Quan & Daniel Schienert) have crafted a new classic. I was a bit on the fence about their last film – Swiss Army Man. It was just a bit too weird for its own good. But EEAAO is infinitely more accessible and more relatable in every way. For all the jaw dropping fight scenes and trippy visuals, at its core it has themes that are simply primal, in the best way possible. And it’s easily the best multiverse movie since Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse. Haha – and it also really underlines how the recent Doctor Strange sequel failed to really grasp the opportunities that a multiverse setting can bring.
So go and see it. On a really big screen with good sound, if you can. If you’re in London, we saw it on Screen 1 at Picturehouse Central. It looked and sounded incredible. But see it with a crowd. I guarantee everyone (everywhere) is going to have a great time (all at once!)
