I’ve done some hard things in my life; including, but not limited to, natural childbirth—twice. Spending approximately four days watching Everything Everywhere All at Once wasn’t as hard as labor and delivery, but it was, at the very least, as hard as admitting I didn’t like the movie.

 

I wanted to like it. Actually, I wanted to love it. I wanted to sit at the popular lunch table with all the cool kids and talk about how much it changed my life and made me a better person. Unfortunately, it didn’t change my life and I’m not a better person and I’m stuck at a table all alone with no silverware eating a sloppy joe and attempting to drink a Capri Sun but for some reason there’s no straw and I have to figure out how to sip my Sun so I bite a hole in the pouch and liquid squirts on everything everywhere all at once and it won’t stop squirting and that’s how the world ends—not by fire as foretold but by a flood of Capri Sun Mystic Dragon.

 

Or, maybe one other loser joins me at the uncool table and that person has a plastic spork and they see my predicament with the Capri Sun and their heart swells three sizes and they gently take the Sun out of my hand and they poke a hole in the pouch using their spork and when they hand my Sun back to me our fingers touch and we realize in that moment that our love will blossom and grow on everything everywhere all at once and it won’t stop and the world will endure and it will be full of lovable losers with high cholesterol levels and rotten teeth.

 

Or, maybe one of the cool kids spots me as I slouch past the popular table and they throw their Capri Sun at me and it hits me in the upper back and I slowly turn to face the perpetrator who shoots me the finger and I stoop to pluck the straw out of the pouch and as I rise the straw turns into a sword and I cut off the middle finger of the perp thus starting a war between everything everywhere all at once and it won’t stop and the world will evolve with generations of four-fingered people.

 

Or, maybe all the foolishness you just read happens simultaneously in different universes. Oops, I just spoiled the plot of the movie that I would’ve liked much better as an episode of Black Mirror on Netflix. I could’ve liked it had it been an hour long instead of four days long. I could’ve liked it had it not had 39,402 fight scenes. I could’ve liked it had the director utilized a feather touch instead of an anvil.

 

What did I expect with a title of Everything Everywhere All at Once? That’s not the title of a subtle movie. That’s the title of a movie that hits you on the head and in the gut and on the butt again and again and again and again and again and again and again. It was so intense I needed a short nap halfway through the looooooooong movie. Manny, the friend I forced to accompany me, had to get up and walk around while I was napping in order to return blood flow to his extremities.

 

The cast is stellar, especially Michelle Yeoh who plays the title character of Evelyn. The special effects are amazing. The universal themes of familial love and acceptance and disappointment and rejection are touching and thought-provoking. No doubt the movie will garner award nominations if not actual awards. No doubt I’ll not change my mind about the movie everyone everywhere is raving about all at once.