‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ and the beauty of nihilism
Filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as the Daniels, created a cinematic enigma with the release of Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2022. Celebrated by audiences and critics alike, whilst the film’s bombastic multiverse visuals gripped the retinas, its nihilistic themes grabbed the attention of a contemporary audience who have long troubled themselves with the meaning of life in an ever-more complex world.
The film was inspired by the pertinent fixation with the movie multiverse, a concept born from the real-life bombardment of content and fake news. Suggesting separate realities that seem more real than we each care to believe, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a film that toys with complex philosophical concepts. Telling the story of a middle-aged Chinese immigrant named Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) who contends with increasing debts and troublesome relationships with her husband and daughter, Daniels toss the film from being a family drama to a bombastic sci-fi which contends with nihilism, a concept that suggests that life is inherently meaningless.
As well as being clearly associated with society’s modern obsession with the complexity of the internet, the filmmakers were also keen to make a comment on the nature of such modern multiverse movies that failed to access the truth at the heart of each narrative. As Daniel Kwan told The Ringer, the duo were “frustrated with multiverse narratives”. Kwan explaiend: “If every single choice branches off into another universe, there should be an infinite number of universes, which means narrative doesn’t matter; choices don’t matter. Why should you care at all?”.
Through embracing nihilism, the Daniels have created a film that is difficult to ridicule, despite it containing many divisive moments of comedy. Of course, not every viewer will be on board with the film’s eccentric sense of humour. The directors spend a lot of time exploring a world in which everyone has hot dogs for fingers, as well as an alternate universe that features ‘Raccacoonie’, a racoon version of Pixar’s rodent chef in Ratatouille.
To cry nonsense at such moments is a subjective complaint, but it is also to miss the point of the film entirely. Refusing to deny nihilism outright, Everything Everywhere All at Once argues that the feeling of worthlessness and apathy that comes with the philosophical concept can be combatted by embracing absurdity, losing your ego and finding empathy in this shared mortal connection.
In such a meaningless universe, the love Evelyn shares with her daughter and husband is the source of true meaning, finding mutual understanding and acceptance in their shared experience of the absurdity of modern life. Embracing the silly side of life is Evelyn’s way of connecting with her daughter, channelling empathy and crossing generational boundaries by getting on a level of mutual understanding.
Whether intentional or not, Daniels’ filmography to date, which includes Everything Everywhere All at Once and 2016’s flatulent corpse comedy Swiss Army Man embraces nihilism whilst offering an optimistic view of its inherent desolation. In a ceaselessly complex world of violence, greed and online noise, Everything Everywhere All at Once asks us to pierce through the cynicism by embracing the need for human connection and compassion in a life that often feels like it’s spiralling out of control.
