[This is a follow-up piece to a previous essay about “Turning Red”, which I recommend you read first.]
On its face, pairing and comparing “Everything Everywhere all at Once” with “Turning Red” makes not a lot of sense. Yes, they are both popular movies, released in the same year, deeply focused on the Asian-American experience, and thematically aligned from tip to tail. But one is a martial arts multiverse action movie, while the other is a fluffy coming of age animated adventure. And while you may wonder how these two seemingly parallel lines intersect, I’m here thinking they are in conversation with each other, not just thematically but literally as well. Stay with me, I’m probably into something. Spoilers to naturally follow.
“Everything Everywhere all at Once” is, as its title suggests, about many things. The Chinese immigrant Evelyn, our protagonist, is trying to simultaneously be a mother, wife, and daughter as well as laundromat co-owner and operator, which means she is doing none of these things successfully. She is fractured, and the entire multiverse conceit itself is an expression of the shattered nature of her being, the amped up version of her key character flaw. Her daughter Joy, born and raised in modern America, represents the Millennial Asian-American. She too is fractured, but in the way a generation raised on the internet would be, with everything available all at once, on demand, on your phone. When all information is at your fingertips always, then everything is equally loud, which makes everything equally important. And when everything is important, then nothing is. Nihilism, as well as existentialism, kindness and family are all key themes in the movie. But at its heart is a story of what a mother will do to be with her daughter after realizing just how far away they are from each other.
It takes a while for this arc to start and for Evelyn to come into her own, as the first half of the film is spent on equal parts exposition and reacting to threats: we learn how the world and the rules of the multiverse work, while the heroes run from bad guys and hide under tables. It is at the midpoint where Evelyn finally demonstrates agency and makes her first choice: to not kill her daughter with a boxcutter. A most basic parenting decision in normal circumstances here marks the beginning of Evelyn’s journey: the declaration that the single life of her daughter is more important than the safety of an entire multiverse.
For the rest of the movie, Evelyn puts herself through the same traumas as her daughter just so she can understand her and meet her where she is, peering over the edge of the nihilistic abyss with her together. She then puts herself through her own personal growth journey, evolving herself first so she can then heal her daughter, step her back from the edge of darkness, and resolve all her other familial conflicts along the way. This is peak parenting; heroic levels of motherhood.
Contrast this with the end of Turning Red, where the daughter expresses her fears of losing her relationship with her mother: although she knows who she wants to be, she is scared that it will cause them to drift apart. Though Meilin’s mother apologizes and admits to sharing the same fear, the dramatic question remains largely unanswered: the burden is on Meilin to grapple with the potential cost of her self actualisation, and though the movie ends with the Westernized Asian choosing herself, she is left wondering if she made the right decision.
It is Evelyn’s arc that provides an answer: she develops both the desire to be with her daughter wherever she may be, as well as the abilities needed to cross any distance, whether cultural, emotional, metaphysical or otherwise, to meet with her where she is. Evelyn’s story is a response to Mei Lin’s fears: it tells us that we can find our own path without fear of widening a generational gap with a parent, because the parent will take on the burden and the work of closing that gap.
Except, of course, that Evelyn does not exist. While Turning Red is a fantastical but still autobiographical story about growing up as a Westernized Asian, Everything Everywhere All at Once is an Asian-American fantasy about the perfect mother: Evelyn is the platonic ideal of the immigrant parent, imagined by the modern Millennial and Asian-American creators who are themselves reflected in Joy, the daughter. A perfect immigrant Super-Mom only exists in fiction.
The reality for immigrant families is that bridging both generational and cultural differences is messy. Even when there is both a recognition of the distance and the desire to bridge that gap, many don’t have the self awareness or the emotional tools or facilities to do so. When acts of love in one generation’s culture are interpreted by the other as acts of control, our lives are spent inadvertently pushing each other’s buttons when all we’re trying to do is show each other that we care.
It’s hard, as Westernized children of immigrants know: “For some reason when I’m with you it just hurts the both of us”, Joy tells her mother in the laundromat parking lot. But even as each act of care is culturally misinterpreted, we all still try, because we all still love each other.
And so, armed with all the wrong tools, the parents flail lovingly in the general direction of their children, and the children flail lovingly right back at them, and all hope that some of the lines thrown across the chasm will connect. And though most of them will miss or be misunderstood and cause more pain instead of relief, we do it anyway and push through the stress, because in the end we love each other and we’re the only family we’ve got. But in the few fleeting moments when the stars align and the mood is right, a line that is thrown is caught and a real connection is made and we can, for a brief moment, see into each other’s hearts. And that glimpse can sometimes fill us up just enough to make it through the next chaotic cycle, in the hopes that one day we figure out a way to make it work with the broken tools that we already have.
Because even in a stupid, stupid, universe where you have hot dogs for fingers, you get really good at using your feet.
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