The Big Picture
- Everything Everywhere All at Once is a genre-blending film that defies classification, making discussions about genres redundant.
- The heart of the film lies in its complex family drama, exploring themes of love, acceptance, and personal growth across three generations.
- The movie treats each genre it incorporates with sincerity, seamlessly transitioning between them while retaining an element of surprise.
It’s not uncommon for multiple genres to overlap within a movie. You have your horror comedies, satire thrillers, and sci-fi epics. But there’s always an overpowering element of a particular genre and its ensuant tone that allows us to neatly categorize the movie. It’s a good and reliable method, but when faced with the too-muchness of a film like Everything Everywhere All at Once, or EEAAO as some abbreviate it, it becomes useless. Indeed, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a movie that renders any discussion about genres entirely redundant with its joyously reckless genre blending.
How Many Movie Genres Does ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Blend?
Technically, it would be correct to call Everything Everywhere All at Once a sci-fi movie in the sense that it deals with the multiverse, but just labeling it just sci-fi feels criminally inadequate in describing the colorful and chaotic movie. It’s true that EEAAO delves into some really dense expositions to establish the odd rules for its multiversal travels. But the sci-fi setting is, but a background made to support the larger-than-life story it wants to unfurl. The real heart of EEAAO lies in its complex family drama which accounts for the growths and traumas spanning across three generations.
Evelyn’s (Michelle Yeoh) father (James Hong) is perpetually disappointed in his daughter and her life decisions. He considers her a coward who runs away from confrontations and never finishes anything. Still, Evelyn is desperate to prove her father wrong and gain his approval. At the same time, she is also a mother and though she showers her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), with all the care and concern, Evelyn is unable to convey love and warmth given her repressive upbringing. Moreover, Joy is queer, and though Evelyn supports her decision, she doesn’t want her father to know of it. And to top it all off, Evelyn’s husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), has started seeing their marriage as a failure and is about to divorce her.
So, you could call it a sci-fi family drama but this too feels inadequate. As integral as the familial element is to EEAAO, it would be a little too draining if it was just that. So, the movie is dotted with plenty of moments that don’t just add levity but make you laugh out loud. It has some of the most surreal scenes that you’d hope to see in a movie (see: the movie’s main villain using plastic penises to murder security guards.) combined with witty dialogues and situational comedy. But then, the movie also isn’t just a sci-fi family drama comedy either. There are just as intense elements of romance, martial arts, fantasy, and adventure, and the movie applies an interesting method to embrace all the genres together.
‘EEAAO’ Treats All Genres With the Utmost Sincerity
On paper, the list of genres that the movie juggles can seem a bit overwhelming, even worrying as the tonal shifts could have easily made the viewing experience a jarring one. But in the experienced hands of the Daniel brothers, EEAAO is able to jump from one genre to another seamlessly. The way they achieve this is by treating each genre with sincerity, respecting each genre in its own right, and complying with its set parameters, while also retaining the element of surprise that’s revealed whenever the genre shifts. The movie starts off as a very flat family drama with a middle-aged married couple on the verge of divorce and their queer daughter who feels unaccepted by her family. But alongside these moments, the movie teases us with the possibility of something else too — like when we see Waymond parkouring like a superhuman in the laundry store — something sinister and otherworldly brewing just around the corner, something that would put their familial complications into perspective.
On their way to the IRS office, Evelyn learns that Waymond wants to divorce her. It’s an incredulous and a shattering moment for Evelyn who comes from a culture where divorces are considered taboo. They have a brief heart-to-heart, and at that moment you feel torn between siding with Waymond or Evelyn since both of them have their compelling reasons. It’s a moment that calls for intense self-reflection, sobbing breakdowns, and heated arguments. But just then, in the flick of a switch, the genre shifts to a martial arts mood as another version of Waymond, the Alpha Waymond, overtakes the one beside Evelyn and launches into a fantastic battle with the security guards of the building. The music that was previously solemn transforms into an Asian, Kungfu-esque tune with techno overtones that hypes up the brilliant fight scene. The stable camerawork turns flashy as it captures the skills and impacts of Waymond’s martial arts as intimately as possible.
But Everything Everywhere All at Once is most interesting when it combines two or more genres at the same time. Take for instance the scene where Evelyn and Waymond are trying to escape the IRS building and get found out by Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis). At that moment, the setting turns dark and gloomy, with flickering lights and an ominous soundtrack. There are some brief moments of jumpscares too, and as Deirdre trudges towards Evelyn, you can really feel the anxiety building. But then, there are also some hilarious moments in the scene, like when Deirdre carries out a backbreaker on Waymond and dropkicks him after having jumped to a universe where she is a pro wrestler. There’s also the ridiculous moment where Evelyn has to profess her love to Deirdre and mean it, while Deirdre beats the crap out of her. Eventually, Evelyn manages to jump into a verse where she knows Kung-fu, and we get to see some martial chops again.
It’s in such a way that EEAAO wholeheartedly agrees with the particular genre it’s toying with. Without compromise, the movie switches its music, camerawork, and tone to comply with whatever genre it’s currently weaving into the story. EEAAO isn’t the first movie to mix sci-fi with martial arts. The most renowned example of this would be the Matrix franchise. But Matrix doesn’t have as much fun with its premise as it should, and neither does it harness the boundless potential of a sci-fi setting in the way EEAAO does. And this is what separates EEAAO from other gender-blending movies. It’s a maximalist movie at heart, and every genre it deals with is treated with the utmost sincerity and taken to its highest innovative potential.
Genre Blending Was Crucial To ‘EEAAO’s Success
The genre-blending in Everything Everywhere All at Once isn’t just there for embellishment though. In fact, it’s absolutely necessary for the ambitious ground the movie wants to cover. Keeping aside the fact that EEAAO explores the multiverse more deeply than any other movie we’ve seen, it also meditates on some heavy topics — about the meaning of existence, poignant familial conflicts, unhappy marriage and so much more — and a single genre would have been too limiting for what the story wants to convey. Each of the themes that the movie wants to explore demands undivided attention, and the filmmakers were daring enough to provide it.
This is why we feel moved by the In The Mood For Love-esque romance between Evelyn and Waymond in the dark alley, in a universe where they never get married. It’s almost as if the movie wants us to forget everything else, and just focus on Evelyn and Waymond’s relationship for a fleeting moment, and we can’t help but comply. After all the death and destruction caused by Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), we still root for Evelyn to save her because of how poignant their final conversation feels. And despite knowing very little about the cook and Raccacoonie, we still want the two to continue with their culinary exploits. And this is why respecting and shifting genres was so crucial to EEAAO. The multiverse is a risky business. It becomes difficult to care for a world when you know there are billions more out there. But by giving us an earnest peek into its many worlds, EEAAO essentially shows us how everything matters, even the universe where we have hotdogs for fingers, and we have no choice but to agree.
