In this section of our Colossus Movie Guide for Everything Everywhere All at Once, we answer questions you have about the movie. If you’re curious about plot explanations, meanings, themes, lessons, motifs, symbols, or just confused by something, ask and we’ll do our best to answer.
Cast
- Evelyn Quan Wang – Michelle Yeoh
- Waymond Wang – Ke Huy Quan
- Joy Wang/Jobu Tupaki – Stephanie Hsu
- Becky – Tallie Medel
- Gong Gong – James Hong
- Deirdre Beaubeirdre – Jamie Lee Curtis
- Debbie – Jenny Slate
- Written by – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
- Directed by – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Everything Everywhere All at Once | Questions and Answers
Did all the events really happen?
Yes. There’s not some trick where it was all a dream. But there is a universe where the movie plays out without any of the multiversal traveling. In that world, Evelyn has a normal yet stressful day where she’s stressed in the morning because of taxes. Struggles at the tax office. Comes home and struggles some more. Only to break down that evening during a party. But hitting rock bottom allows her to reevaluate how she feels about herself, her husband, her daughter, her life. And she connects with Deirdre. Fast forward a short bit, and the family is in a happy, healthy place.
The caveat here is that even in this “normal” world there’s the multiversal intrusion of Evelyn and Joy having become meta consciousnesses. Which means the Evelyn and Joy in the normal world are still cognizant of everything that’s happened everywhere else. They’re not some other versions of the characters we’ve known. This is why the serious conversation they have when Joy tries to drive away and Evelyn stops her and they get real, that’s them fully aware of the other universes and making the choice to stay in this one and be singular rather than everywhere.
Is the world we start in the world we end in?
No! The world we start in is the one where everything goes to hell and Evelyn has her showdown with the Alpha team and saves Jobu from the bagel.
The universe at the end is a branch of the original universe, one where Alpha-Waymond never shows up and the day continues as it would have.
Is Everything Everywhere inspired by The Matrix?
Yes. It’s also inspired by another Wachowski movie, Cloud Atlas. They’ve also cited Southland Tales and The Fountain as references.
Why did they go with a bagel?
I think it comes down to a few things. First, if your title is Everything Everywhere All at Once, you’re looking for things that might have associations. There’s a popular idiom that goes, “A person who has everything has nothing.” Which gets at the idea that the more we accumulate, the less we have, because, at a certain point, it’s too much. Imagine if you had 2 hours a day of free time. If you spend it on a singular hobby, you can form a deep relationship. If you split that time between two hobbies, you can still get somewhere. If you try to balance four hobbies. Or 10 hobbies. 100 hobbies. At a certain point, you’re no longer learning, growing, or improving. You’re just jumping from thing to thing.
It’s the same concept with a house. If you own a 25-room mansion, how much of it do you really use? If you own 1000 shirts, how many do you wear? If you have 1000 friends, how many can you realistically keep up with?
Once Jobu had access to everything, she became a nihilist. She herself feels like nothing. Like no one. Which is why she begins craving self-destruction.
Second, as you look for more associations, it’s understandable that you’d eventually consider an “everything bagel”. It’s a popular type of bagel that includes a mix of seasonings that coat the top, darkening it. You already have a character who is a nihilist due to the concept of everything, it seems simple enough to find a way to incorporate a bagel into that.
In an interview with Vulture The Daniels, Daniel Kwan said: There’s a scientific calculation you can do for any object in the universe called a Schwarzschild radius, an object that when you compress it down to that radius becomes a black hole. It becomes a singularity and it’s hypothetical. But the idea is, at a certain density, anything will become a black hole. So everyone has their Schwarszchild radius. Wouldn’t it be funny if she did that to an everything bagel? Because this movie is about everything. It started as just a throwaway joke.
Daniel Scheinert added: The bagel stuck because it became such a useful, simple symbol that we could point to as filmmakers. And you don’t have to explain it much beyond the joke.
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