Everything Everywhere All At Once's Sets Have Fans All Saying The Same Thing

A24 studio is well known for weird. In previous years, it released films such as Ari Aster's "Hereditary," Bo Burnham's "Eighth Grade," and Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's "Swiss Army Man." For context, those three movies alone are about an evil spirit granny, the nightmare hellscape that is puberty in the modern era, and Daniel Radcliffe's sentient corpse showcasing magical survival skills. These examples are only a drop in the bucket that is A24's list of films, but the point should be clear by now. Never underestimate the level to which A24's creatives will go for their artistic vision. 

One of their most recent pieces is "Everything Everywhere All at Once," a film that almost defies description. Also from Kwan and Scheinert, it's a multiversal absurdist dramedy that follows a financially struggling, emotionally distant family on the verge of collapse. Despite, or perhaps because of, the director's self-described maximalist filming strategy, the film was universally loved and, across that same board, fans have shared the aspects of the film which blew their mind. 

In a subreddit dedicated to cinema, u/LiteraryBoner (it's okay to laugh, it's funny) hosted an official discussion about "Everything Everywhere All at Once" for Redditors to share their thoughts. Amongst the over 7,000 comments, a number of voices spoke of their genuine surprise that the thrilling film took place almost exclusively in boring locations. u/PWN3R_RANGER said, "IRS has a secret sex dungeon. I like how this movie about the infinite power of the multiverse takes place almost entirely in an IRS building, too. What a hell of an achievement. I'm floored by this film and I'm going to need to see it several more times..." Another user, u/GamingTatertot, said, "Almost entirely in an IRS building and when it wasn't in the IRS building, it was in a laundromat. Two exceptionally boring locations made into two exceptionally action-filled and emotion-filled set pieces."

As these Redditors noted, the film really does take place in the two most boring locations imaginable, and that was by design. An important aspect of "Everything Everywhere All at Once" is how Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) hates her current life. She owns a laundromat with her husband, Waymond Wang (Ku Hay Quan), who's considering divorce as a solution to his wife's vocal bitterness towards their current status. The IRS office serves as an even more boring, even more vile consequence of their current shortcomings. The drier than dry setting allows the later fantastical elements to pop dramatically, as if they needed any assistance. Even more impressive about the decision to use these settings is how it definitely affected the overall budget of the film, which was, as sites like GBH noted, only 25 million, a startlingly low number for modern cinema.