Movies: Everything Everywhere All at Once

In a cineplex stuffed to the gills with superheroes, sequels, and remakes, Everything Everywhere All at Once is the proverbial breath of fresh air - a wild adventure that's part slapstick and part serious:

Michelle Yeoh plays a downtrodden laundromat owner straining over her relationships with her husband and daughter. On a particularly dreary visit to the IRS for an audit, she becomes aware of the presence of parallel universes - an Everett many-worlds collection of possibilities showing choices she could have made and lives she could have lived. But there is a darkness out there in the multiverse, and it's up to Yeoh's character to make things right, using all the skills and knowledge of her other lives.

Everything is sort of like that old Jet Li flick, The One, if you crossed it with Kung Fu Hustle and The Joy Luck Club. I can see the trailers struggling to communicate what the movie is about - is it action? Is it comedy? Drama? Well, it's all of those things, and if each genre perhaps isn't executed as well as a standalone piece, the directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert do a good job of keeping the mélange entertaining.

Rating: 8/10