Directed by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
Produced by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Mike Larocca, Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang, Peter Tam Lee
Starring
Michelle Yeoh
Stephanie Hsu
Ke Huy Quan
Jenny Slate
Harry Shum Jr.
James Hong
Jamie Lee Curtis
Cinematography Larkin Seiple
Edited by Paul Rogers
Music by Son Lux
Production companies IAC Films, Gozie AGBO, Year of the Rat, Ley Line Entertainment
Distributed by A24
Imagine if the metaverse had been designed by Douglas Adams. Anyone who has read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy remembers the Heart of Gold, the purloined ship that had the Infinite Improbability Drive. The notion was the drive could move the ship to any probability (and thus locale), no matter how remote. It left falling whales and pots of petunias in its wake, neither of which were particularly happy about their fate.
In EEAAO, you didn’t need to steal the Heart of Gold. You simply needed to do something totally unexpected and as random as you could make it. You are, let’s say, the Pope, and you are performing the Easter Mass. You stop midway through a prayer, pick your nose, thoughtfully consider the loogie on your finger, and then put it back where you found it. Congratulations! The Alpha Pope will now move you to an alternate reality, where you might be the Pope, or a rabbi, or a small dog who is secretly the Hound of Hades. Or a bowl of petunias. Or a whale…
Evelyn (Yeoh) owns a laundromat. Her life is in shambles: her husband is plotting to divorce her on the grounds that she is boring. Her teenage daughter Joy, with whom she already has a tempestuous relationship, has a girlfriend, and wants to come out to Evelyn’s father, a traditional elder who is a less-than-welcome guest visiting from China for the Lunar New Year celebrations. She is being audited by the IRS, who have already raised the spectre of fraud charges over some of her more feckless deductions. She hates her life. Oh, and shortly after we meet her, she punches the IRS agent in the nose. This does not go well.
Alpha Evelyn from the Alpha universe (the “real” one, as if) intercedes because in all the other ‘verses, Joy is actually Jobu Tupaki, described as an omnicidal nihilist (and here we thought Joy was just suffering from teenage angst). Jobu, it turns out, has no relationship with the Jobu who was affiliated with the Cleveland Indians, even though both could be described as dark gods. Evelyn must persuade Joy to persuade Jobu to lighten up.
As they travel through a bewildering array of ‘verses where they are kung-fu masters (Jackie Chan was originally mooted for the lead role), have hot dogs for fingers, or are a pair of rocks on a lifeless Earth hurtling toward a cliff edge at 2 centimeters an hour, a kind of igneous Thelma and Louise. That’s a good spot for the viewer to catch breath. In one universe, a young man pretends to be a master chef, although the real genius sits in his chefs’ toque blanche, guiding his motions. No, not a cartoon rat. Don’t be vulgar. A cartoon raccoon. (Rat? Really? What made you come up with THAT?)
In one universe Evelyn and Joy face Death by Double Dildo, which isn’t nearly as nasty as your rat-infested mind came up with, but is still pretty nasty.
EEAAO goes through about as many genres as it does ‘verses, science fiction, martial arts, family drama, philosophical gems, absurdist comedy, and surrealism. Yet it doesn’t throw the viewer off like a mad carousel; it’s engaging, the acting is amazing, and it’s usually falling-down funny. It’s a wild, delightful ride, and a great way to spend two hours.
For a philosopher, though, it’s an utter nightmare. You see, the multiverse makes it possible for existence to be both utterly random and completely predeterministic—all at the same time. G’luck with that, Descartes!
* How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All—title of the 1969 album by the absurdist comedy troupe Firesign Theater.