“THE SPIRITUAL LIFE, in other words, is not achieved by denying one part of life for the sake of another. The spiritual life is achieved only by listening to all of life and learning to respond to each of its dimensions wholly and with integrity.”
In this quote from Wisdom Distilled From the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today, Joan Chittister writes about living a spiritually active existence that fully engages with our daily reality. She couldn’t have known it at the time, but Chittister might as well have been describing one of the biggest pop culture trends of the last few years: the multiverse.
The concept of multiple worlds and multiple versions of ourselves (some of whom live the life we secretly wish we had) has become ubiquitous across screens, from movies like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home to TV shows like Rick and Morty and Doctor Who. Perhaps the example of multiverse storytelling to most successfully plumb emotional possibilities so far — listening to all of life and responding to its dimensions with integrity — is also one of 2022’s most surprising hits: the indie film Everything Everywhere All at Once.
“Every rejection, every disappointment has led you here to this moment,” an alternate-universe version of Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan) tells his wife, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh). Evelyn’s life — at least as she sees it — has indeed been filled with disappointment. She and Waymond left China as a young couple for a shot at success in the United States. Now they own a laundromat that the IRS is auditing, live in a cramped apartment above their business, and have tense relationships with their daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) and Evelyn’s father (James Hong).
One stressful day, Evelyn is visited by an alpha-male alternate version of her typically meek husband. He tells Evelyn only she can save her world from an all-powerful destructive being named Jobu Tupaki. To defeat Jobu, Evelyn must access versions of herself from across the multiverse to tap into their abilities (including kung fu, sign spinning, and hibachi chef expertise). In the process, Evelyn learns the true keys to saving existence: embracing her life and those in it with gratitude and asking for forgiveness from the people she’s hurt.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s wildly inventive movie questions the meaning of life and, in the process, taps into relatable feelings about the paths not taken. Everything Everywhere All at Once understands that while anything is possible in the cosmic sense, the only thing that truly matters is how we live with what we’re given. In the film, as in reality, true love — of ourselves, of others, and for the world — stems from a full acceptance of our potential and understanding how to reach for it in the space where we are now.
Abby Olcese is a freelance film critic and writer based in Missouri. You can find her on Twitter @abbyolcese.
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