Humans are always trying to figure out where the "déjà vu" (Déjà vu) and the often infesting sense of confusion come from. "What If" is a big fish. Whenever the water in the pond is shallow, it exposes its blue-black back, and its sharp dorsal fin hurts the soul.
Two Daniel (Kwan Jiayong, Daniel Schnatter) directed the sci-fi film "Everything Everywhere All at Once", one of the sources of inspiration must be "What If". There is such a big fish lying in the soul pond of Evelyn, the owner of the laundromat played by Michelle Yeoh. The big fish is usually silent, but when the crisis comes, it shows up. The laundry has tax troubles and faces mortgage and confiscation. Her husband Weimond (played by Guan Jiwei) files for divorce, and her only daughter Joey (played by Xu Weilun) has not been in contact with her family for a long time. The opposition, and Weimond ran away to the United States, guarding a small shop to spend most of his disappointing life. Now, she is lingering in the pile of bills. What if she didn't get married at first?

"The Universe in a Moment" poster

"What If" is just one of dozens of inspirations for the film. The hot concept of "parallel universes" in film and television is another inspiration. The two Daniels love to keep track of new scientific theories. It's like watching a horror movie, it's addicting. Theories about time and the universe are often terrifying, as deep, distant, and endless as black holes themselves, and one would drive one crazy at a glance. No one knows what the terrifying and crazy Cthulhu is like. Maybe Cthulhu is like the black doughnut created by the two Daniels, and looks harmless to humans and animals. But just one look can make your world fall apart.
The basic setting of the film is that there are countless parallel universes, and every decision in life will split a new universe. Evelyn, who runs a laundry shop, is in the main universe. Parallel universes do not communicate with each other. But in the Alpha universe, Evelyn, who has a scientific spirit and powerful strength, invented the parallel universe jumping method.
The specific operation method of this method is relatively obscene, which gave birth to various strange operations in the film. According to the setting of the movie, the lower the probability of the action made by the universe shuttler (that is, the more exaggerated and outrageous), the farther the divergent universe can jump to, and the greater the difference from the main universe.

"The whole universe in a flash" stills

Michelle Yeoh, whose screen image is serious, proves her ancestry as a Hong Kong actress with her performances (although she was born in Malaysia). Even if she has played less of the coquettish ghost cult films, she should have watched a lot. Evelyn in the main universe is always surprised and confused, often impatient, and occasionally tired. These are the rare expressions of Michelle Yeoh on the big screen in the past. Her charm comes from quietness, tenacity and strength, and her beautiful and powerful skills are unmatched by Chinese actresses. It is not surprising to learn that it was Michelle Yeoh who proposed that the mother-daughter dialogue in the Stone Universe should be muted, all expressed in words. The power of silence is her strength.
Evelyn of the Alpha Universe, training daughter Joey to travel through parallel universes. Alfa Joy's brain was broken because of the excessive force. She has seen herself in thousands of parallel universes, experienced everything, and became a god of nothingness with her own powerful power. She was the one who created that doughnut and threw all cognition on it. The doughnut becomes a black hole that devours time, matter, meaning and love, and the parallel universes collapse and disappear one by one.
Where there is devotion, there is resistance. The leader of the resistance is Father Alpha (Evelyn's Abba). Alpha Wymond is extremely powerful and is the backbone of it. Evelyn, who has been organized to search all universes, but no one is strong enough to fight against Joey. In the confrontation between Joey and Evelyn, Evelyn all died.

"The whole universe in a flash" stills

Originally, even if there are 1 million parallel universes, there is nothing to do with each other. Once the first crack was formed and a ray of light from another life leaked in, it was enough to make Evelyn in the main universe feel doubts and regrets. Evelyn sees herself star-studded in Kung Fu Actress Universe, and handsome in Chef Universe and Billboard Universe. Only the laundromat, Evelyn, was disheartened and unwilling.
Once people begin to doubt the status quo and regret the decisions that led to their current situation, they are often distracted and absent-minded. Evelyn looked in a trance when confronted by the tax officer's questioning. On the other side of the mirror, the channel of the parallel universe opened, releasing a dense colony of ants. Every parallel universe is an ant. The camera zooms in on them, revealing the ant's face in detail. If you're as big as an ant, you'll find that the ant colony is more than noisy, it's just overwhelming.
The director deliberately created a din, and the speed of the jump cut exceeds the level of comfortable viewing. Behind the confusion and irritability of Evelyn in the main universe is the deafening sound of the shuttle universe (that is, the potential of life). The director explained that this deliberate noise effect is a simulation of the information overload of modern people. When the noise is in the ear day and night, how will it affect every decision of a person? Evelyn struggles in the main universe. Like Sun Wukong, her body is still absent-minded, and her primordial spirit has jumped to a different universe to quickly live again. Unlike other parallel universe movies, characters can get a relatively complete experience in one universe. The shuttle here is fast and violent, and even the movement that symbolizes the success of the shuttle - a big head up, is very urgent. Evelyn makes cosmic jumps again and again like a convulsion, triggering Evelyn in the main universe to show different states—sometimes brave, clenching her fists;
There is a basic rule of superhero movies: people who look like mortals are trapped in reality and cannot move, and one day acquire superpowers, break all restraints in one fell swoop, and fight the greater evil in the world. Evelyn's growth followed this pattern. As it turns out, Alfa Weymond was right. Although she was the worst Evelyn of all the Evelyns that Welmond knew, she had the most potential. Her potential comes from a lot of her wishes, which are not realized. Disappointed people have the greatest potential. This idea is very oriental and full of goodwill. Later, we will find that Evelyn's strength does not come from her failed wish, but from her independent choice.
A person who has no choice suddenly gains the ability to experience an infinite variety of life. Alpha Evelyn's invention also has a subtlety: people who jump into different universes can acquire another special skill of their own, such as kung fu and cooking. The more you jump, the stronger you become; the more you experience, the easier it is to slide into nothingness. Alfajoy is so powerful that no one can match it, and so nihilistic that he just wants complete death. She is like a lonely giant in mythology, running in the universe, everywhere she goes, just to find that one person. Because only this person could possibly have the same experience as her. She doesn't need comfort, she just wants someone to empathize with.

Screenshot of "All Universe"

Starring Michelle Yeoh and Guan Jiwei are also inspirations for the director. Michelle Yeoh broke into Hollywood as a popular actress back then, played many supporting roles and became a color in the palette, and never had the opportunity to be a heroine again. Guan Jiwei is even worse. He made his debut in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) and "The Goonies" in the 1980s. Unfortunately, his identity as a Chinese child star did not bring him more performance opportunities. , has been working behind the scenes in movies for forty years.
Needless to say, there must be a lot of "What If" in the lives of these two people. The red carpet information used in the Kung Fu actress universe comes from Michelle Yeoh's real image data. Guan Jiwei's face was not much different from when he was a child. I saw this face on the screen again after a long absence, familiar and unfamiliar. Without a cosmic jump, thoughts will naturally diverge: Where has he been all these years? Is Guan Jiwei in another universe who has a smooth star journey and has long become a big star, but is playing the role of a useless good gentleman here? Is the man who suddenly flipped over in the title monitor his real body?
Movies with the theme of "What If" all need a needle in the end to calm the infinity that comes with this problem. The Dinghaishenzhen in this movie, like everything else, is also "love". The resentment and impatience between Evelyn and Joey's mother-daughter relationship, the gap between expectations and reality, the resentment between the desire to understand and the inability to ask, ultimately all rely on "live through the ages and still want you to be my daughter" "A write-off. Love can conquer infinity, Evelyn's plastic eyeballs (white outside and black inside) defeated Joey's doughnuts (black outside and white inside), symbolizing the victory of a pragmatic philosophy over a cold philosophy, and the warmth of the world over the absence of God the emptiness of redemption.
Such a sci-fi Cult film is exquisite, vigorous and human, and it is not surprising that it has a good reputation. But does anyone like me think it's too sweet and not delicate enough?

Screenshot of "All Universe"

The relationship between East Asian mothers and daughters that the film wants to portray is not as good as "Turning Red" (Turning Red). Evelyn was a little absent-minded at best, and Joey was rebellious to the point of resoluteness, wishing that the fire would burn from nowhere. The roughness and formatting of the mother-daughter relationship is also related to Xu Weilun who plays Joey. Seeing her in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, ABC has so much poise that it belies the inner richness of the actor. She is the most common ABC in the United States, and you can see several in every high school and college. Her acting skills always give people the feeling of watching those beautiful girls on campus from a distance. Xu Weilun is a collection of people. The movements, eyes, and the curvature of the corners of the mouth are very familiar, but they lack the personal and deep characteristics that you can only know after you get to know a person.
Xu Weilun's Joey is like a group of people, not one person, which affects the emotional connection between mother and daughter in the film. She would procrastinate when she was in the scene. The best mother-daughter scene is the silent dialogue between two stones.

"The whole universe in a flash" stills

The dazzling editing and stalking have reached the noise preset of two Daniels, but they have failed to go too far. An hour and a half later, when Michelle Yeoh, who was at the peak of her combat effectiveness, saw Guan Jiwei imitating three animals to switch the performance mode, she had seen enough of Xu Weilun, and Mr. Wu Hanzhang also played the nostalgic card. The fatigue was as uncontrollable as yawning. Especially in the last third, we have eaten the outer layer of the cake decorated with imagination, skill, speed and tons of stems, and eaten the very conservative cake core - returning to the family, embracing the moderation, voluntarily declining Other possibilities.
This cake seems to be very refreshing when eaten, and the popping candy is jumping on the tip of the tongue. After swallowing it, it seemed like nothing was eaten.