“Everything Everywhere All at Once” could not be a more accurate title for the second feature film from the filmmaking team “The Daniels,” Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known for their 2016 film “Swiss Army Man” and the striking music video for DJ Snake and Lil Jon, “Turn Down for What.” In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the duo take every existential question, raunchy joke and nonsensical notion they’ve seemingly ever had and throw it all at the screen in a chaotic, hectic and utterly exhausting two hours and 12 minutes, an all-consuming sensorial cinematic assault. Whether or not that sounds like a good time at the movies is up to the viewer to decide.
The audaciously daring and original filmmaking on display is indeed laudable, as well as the obvious delight poured into the making of this film. However, admiring the chutzpah of The Daniels doesn’t necessarily translate into actual enjoyment of the film, which is a high-concept project with plenty of flair, but a crucial lack of finesse in storytelling.
It’s the script that’s the fatal flaw in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Though deeply earnest and heartfelt, with a desire to engage in larger questions of existence and love across time, space and form, it’s incredibly messy, unbalanced and unmotivated, and demands a certain measure of goodwill from the viewer that it does not reciprocate. Because the story is such an extreme concept, the script is made up almost entirely of rapid-fire exposition, explanation and monologues; when nothing makes sense a character says, “that doesn’t make sense,” deployed like some kind of screenwriting “get out of jail free” card that doesn’t pass muster. Chapter titles as a structuring device are used in a manner that is downright rude, and the film “ends” no less than nine times.
