Even after only two movies, I would trust the directing duo Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) with any movie. They have earned a lifetime pass from me. If these men can make the farting corpse of Harry Potter not just one of the weirdest movies of 2016, not just one of the best films of that year, but also one of the most insightful toward the human condition, then these men can do anything. It’s been six long years for a follow-up but it sure has been worth it. Everything Everywhere All At Once is, to be pithy, a whole lot of movie. Everything Everywhere (my preferred shorthand from here) is a miracle of a movie. It’s a wonder that something this bizarre, this wild, this juvenile, this ambitious, and this specific in vision could find its way through the dream-killing factory that is Hollywood moviemaking. This is the kind of movie you celebrate for simply existing, something so marvelously different but so assured, complex but accessible, and deliriously, amazingly creative. I’m throwing out a lot of adjectives and adverbs to describe the experience of this movie and that’s because it filled me with such sheer wonder and divine happiness. I am thankful that the Danirels are making their movies on their terms, and two movies into what I hope is a long and uncompromising career, I can tell that both of these gentlemen deserve all the accolades and plaudits they have coming. I’ll try my best not to sound like a simpering moron while I try to explain why this movie is so thoroughly outstanding.

Evelyn (Michelle Yeaoh) is a middle-aged Chinese immigrant who is taking stock of her disappointing life. She and her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), own a floundering coin-operated laundromat. They’re under audit by a dogged IRS agent (Jamie Lee Curtis). Evelyn’s disapproving father, Gong Gong (James Hong, still so great even into his 90s), has moved from China to live with the family, and he was never a fan of Waymond, looking down on his daughter for marrying the man. Then there’s Joy (Stephanie Hsu), Evelyn and Waymond’s twenty-something daughter, who wants to bring her girlfriend to dinner but mom still doesn’t accept her daughter’s queerness and uses the excuse of Gong Gong’s generational disapproval. Then, at the IRS agency, Waymond’s body is taken over by another Waymond, Alpha Waymond, who informs Evelyn that she is the key to saving a universe of universes, and she’ll have to tap into her alternate selves and their abilities to battle the evil destroyer, Jobu Tupaki, who wants to destroy all existence, and who also happens to be an alternate universe version of Joy.

Multiverses are definitely all the rage right now as they present nostalgic cash-grabs and cameos galore, but Everything Everywhere is a multiverse that is personal and specific. It’s based on all the paths the protagonist never took, and each allows her confirmation of what her life could have been, often more glamorous or exciting or initially appealing. A movie star. A famous singer. A ballerina. A skilled chef. Evelyn is a character paralyzed by the disappointment of her life’s choices, the malaise that has settled in, and the nagging feeling that things could have and should have been better. In one of the best jokes early on, Evelyn is told she’s the Chosen One not because she is special but because she is, literally, living the worst of all possible lives of the multiverse of Evelyns (then again the pinata Evelyn didn’t look like an upgrade). She has taken all the many bad paths and dead ends, but this positions her as the only one who has the power to tap into every other power and ability from her multiverse duplicates. It’s one thing to be feeling like you should have made a different choice in the past, and it’s another to get confirmation. This backhanded revelation could just serve as its own joke but it actually transforms into a philosophy that coalesces in the final act, that of all the universes and possibilities we could have had, the best one is the one we are actually present for. In another universe, one very much styled like In the Mood for Love, where a Waymond who was rejected by Evelyn long ago reconnects with her, mournful of what could have been, and says, “In another life, I would have really liked doing laundry and taxes with you,” in reference to Evelyn’s dismissive summation of what his unrequited romantic “what if” would have lead to. It’s such a poignant moment. By the end of the movie, it’s become a journey of self-actualization but tied to self-acceptance, where kindness and empathy are the real super weapons and the answer to the tumult of postmodern nihilism.

Smartly, the Daniels have made sure that a universe-hopping threat is actually connected to our hero in a meaningful manner. By making the villain an alternate version of Joy, it raises the stakes and forces Evelyn to have to confront her own parenting miscues and frayed relationship with her daughter. It’s the kind of decision-making that reinforces the emotional and thematic core of a movie that is spinning so fast that it feels like you might fall off and vomit new colors. Joy is an avatar of generational disconnect, inherited disappointment and resentment, but what really makes her relatable is the growing feeling of being over it all. Given the power to see everything in every universe, Joy concludes that life is overwhelming and without meaning. It’s the same sort of nihilism we might feel today as we doom scroll through our phones, eyes glazed over from the barrage of bad news, outraged click bait, and feeling of abject helplessness while the world spins on in an uncertain direction. It’s not hard to feel, as Joy, that it’s all too much to bear, and if she can experience everything then does it present value to anything? If she can always just sidestep to another universe, what does that do to the value of life? That’s the ethical conundrum with Rick and Morty, a show where they can swap characters from other dimensions to fix more costly mistakes. What Daniels attempts with Everything Everywhere is to tackle the same question but approaching a different answer: that despite everything, life matters, our relationships matter, and kindness and empathy matter most. Watching Evelyn and Joy, and their many different versions of mother and daughter, try to reach an understanding, it’s easy to feel that struggle and relate to wanting to feel seen. As Evelyn encouragingly says to one character at their lowest point, “It is too much to handle, yes. But nobody is ever alone.”

This is a dozen different kinds of movies, all smashed together, and each of them is utterly delightful and skillfully realized and executed. If you like martial arts action, there are some excellent fight sequences including a showstopper where Waymond wrecks a team of security guards with a fanny pack. The action is exciting and the martial arts choreography is impressive and filmed in a pleasing style that allows us to really appreciate the moves and countermoves. If you like wild comedies, there are many outlandish moments that combine low-humor and highbrow references. I’ll simply refer to one as finding payoffs for IRS auditor trophies shaped like butt plugs. This is one of the funniest American comedies in years. If you like family dramas, there is plenty of conflict across the board between Evelyn and Waymond and Joy, plus the specter of Gong Gong, and each person trying to communicate their dissatisfaction and desires for a better life. If you removed all of the crazy sci-fi elements, googly eyes, people’s heads turning to confetti, and what have you, this would still be a compelling human drama. When the movie isn’t working through ridiculous tangents, or eye-popping action, or a staggering combination of kitsch and intelligence, it’s building out its emotional core, the heart of the movie, the thing that makes all the gee-whiz fun matter, the family in flux. Likewise, this is a powerfully optimistic movie, life-affirming in all the best ways without being pandering, and one that is without any flash of ironic condescension. Sincerity is powerful and all over.

The movie is elevated even higher by the strength of the performances. Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians) has spent decades as a martial arts master, and of late she’s been branching out in more demanding dramas, but this is easily the finest performance of her career for nothing less than playing a dozen different characters. She is sensational. The early Evelyn is full of despair and regret, and as she gets to explore each new version of herself, there’s an excitement that’s bristling, as she gets to see the successes she could have been and celebrate. Yeaoh is hilarious and deeply affecting in the central role and still very much a badass. She showcases starting range, it makes you weep that she has never gotten to play so many different kinds of roles because she’s so good at all of them. Hsu (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) is the wounded soul, and her sneers and seen-it-all attitude are killer without losing track of the pain at the core of the character. Her emotional confrontations with her mother still hit hard. But the secret weapon of this movie is Quan, the former child actor best remembered as playing Data in The Goonies and Short Round in Temple of Doom. Yes, that same actor. He too gets to play such a wide, wild variety of Waymonds, from the doting and meek husband, to the confidant warriors, to the smoldering former flame, but with each new Waymond, Quan makes you fall in love with the original more. The character of Waymond and his central philosophy of kindness is so moving and needed, that we almost get to fall in love and re-evaluate this man the same way Evelyn does. Also of note, Curtis (Knives Out) is having an absolute blast as her menacing IRS agent.

It’s truly amazing to me that a movie can have some of the silliest, craziest, dumbest humor imaginable, and then find ways to tie it back thematically and make it yet another important thread that intricately ties into the overall impact of the movie. The genius of Daniels is marrying the most insane ideas with genuine pathos. Take for instance that one of the many multiverses involves people with hot dogs instead of fingers. It’s a goofy visual, and it could simply have been that, a passing moment to make you smile, but the Daniels don’t stop there. They continue developing their ideas, all of their ideas, and find additional jokes and purposes few could. Okay, so this is a big divergence from history, so how could humans evolve to have hot dogs for fingers? Well the movie actually showcases this moment in a hilarious 2001: A Space Odyssey reference. And then the film says, “Well, if this was the way of life, what other practices would evolve from here when it comes to communication and intimacy?” It’s that level of development and commitment that blows me away. The same with what starts as Evelyn’s misunderstanding of the Pixar movie Ratatouille. It works just as a joke in the moment, but then it comes back as its own reality, and even that reality has a thematic resonance by the end. This level of imagination, to take the weirdest jokes and make them meaningful, is special. In one second, I can cry laughing from a raccoon and in the next second a rock can make me want to cry. In essence, even though Everything Everywhere is beyond stuffed, nothing is merely disposable.

That doesn’t mean that the film doesn’t also fall victim to repetition at points. My only criticism, and it might even be eliminated entirely after a second viewing, is that Daniels can over indulge when it comes to their narrative points. Some things can get stretched out, so that they hit points with five beats when three could have been sufficient. It’s this kind of mentality that pushes the running time to almost two hours and twenty minutes, which feels a bit extended. However, the messiness and overstuffed nature of the movie is also one of its hallmarks, so I don’t know if this criticism will even register for many, especially if you’re fully on board their wacky wavelength.

If you can, please go into Everything Everywhere All At Once knowing as little as possible. The carousel of surprise and amazement is constant, but the fact that there is a strong emotional core, that all the many stray elements become perfectly braided together, no matter how ridiculous, is all the more impressive. This is stylized filmmaking that is very personal while also being accessible and universal in its existential pains and longing. It’s style and substance and exhilarating and genius and emotionally cathartic and moving and everything we want with movies. It’s the kind of movie that reignites your passion for cinema, the kind that delivers something new from the studio system, and the kind that deserves parades in celebration. Simply put, as I said before, this is a miracle of a movie, and you owe it to yourself to feel this blessing.

Nate’s Grade: A