Everything Everywhere All at Once

Plots: A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led. With her laundromat teetering on the brink of failure and her marriage to wimpy husband Waymond on the rocks, overworked Evelyn Wang struggles to cope with everything, including a tattered relationship with her judgmental father and daughter. And as if facing a gloomy midlife crisis wasn’t enough, Evelyn must brace herself up for an unpleasant meeting with an impersonal bureaucrat: Deirdre, the shabbily dressed IRS auditor. However, as the stern agent loses patience, an inexplicable multiverse rift becomes an eye-opening exploration of parallel realities. Will Evelyn jump down the rabbit hole? But how many stars are in the universe? Can weary Evelyn fathom the irrepressible force of possibilities, tap into newfound powers, and prevent an evil entity from destroying the thin, countless layers of the unseen world? Evelyn Wang is going through the motions of life in trying to achieve some sort of fulfillment, which she may or may not admit to herself has, so far, been unsuccessful at almost any level. She and her husband, Waymond Wang, own and operate a laundromat, and while she loved him when they were first married – marrying him against the advice of her judgmental father’s – she now feels that he is a weak man whose messes she has to fix. On the flip side, she has no idea that he has had papers drawn for divorce, or that he only plans on going through with it as a last resort if things between them don’t improve. She feels she has never really had the love or respect of her father – whom she ran away from as a young adult – and now he has come from Asia to the US to live with her and Waymond. Evelyn and Waymond’s only offspring, young adult Joy Wang, has turned into a version of her by pulling away, not feeling any love or getting any respect, and as such, being aimless in life. What may be the pinnacle of the mother/daughter problems is that Joy has not only brought her girlfriend Becky into their lives – how to explain Becky to her father and others like him; the biggest issue in the same sex vein – but Becky is also white. Conversely, Evelyn’s life could have been so much more if she made different choices or followed through with any of the many other things she started. On top of preparing for a Chinese New Year’s Eve party under the pressure of trying to meet the exacting standards of her father, she and Waymond are also in the middle of an IRS audit by their auditor, hard-nosed Deirdre Beaubeirdre. As Evelyn and Waymond enter into what is supposed to be their final “show me the proper paperwork or else” meeting with Deirdre, Evelyn physically and metaphysically enters into alternate universes, where she not only has to make the right choices to save the collective universe, but arguably more importantly, come to a true understanding of herself.