In between the franchise juggernauts Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the independent production company A24 released its own multiversal feature film. Even without a Disney-backed MCU budget, Everything Everywhere All at Once embraced the concept of the multiverse in more detail and with more ambition than those comic book films. The idea of the multiverse is simple: there exists an infinite number of universes and possibilities alongside our own. However, the directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, also known as the Daniels, complicate the multiversal story of a Chinese-American mother struggling to keep a laundromat in good standing with the IRS while at the same time barely keeping her own family together. When she is tasked with saving the multiverse by her husband from an alternate universe, she must harness her special skills and powers from across space and time in order to defeat the ultimate evil that threatens all of existence.
What is 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' About?
Everything Everywhere All At Once introduces the worn-out Chinese-American immigrant Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), who finds herself trying to keep her head above water. Between running a laundromat, dealing with her sweet but clueless husband Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan), her struggling daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and her ill, old-school father Gong Gong (James Hong), there’s no such thing as breaks in Evelyn’s life. But things take a turn for the truly bizarre during a routine IRS visit, when a multiverse mess-up throws her into interdimensional chaos. Suddenly, she’s an unexpected hero with access to countless versions of herself from alternate realities. But that’s the least of her worries. When Evelyn learns of the more sinister, alternate version of Joy, a.k.a. Jobu Tupaki, Evelyn must harness her talents to stop an all-powerful force bent on destroying everything.
Amid the crazy pool of mind-bending visual effects, bizarre characters, and a kaleidoscope of alternate universes, it’s easy to get carried away by the awe-striking absurdism that the movie is celebrated for. But at its heart, Everything Everywhere All At Onceis a deeply personal story about a mother trying to untangle her messy family relationships - especially with her daughter, Joy. Evelyn isn’t just hopping through multiverses to save existence from being swallowed up by nothingness; she’s also fighting to convince her daughter that life, despite all its chaos and confusion, is still worth living. Each leap into another reality is a step toward healing, not just the universe, but the broken bonds between mother and daughter.
Jobu Tupaki and the Everything Bagel
Image via A24
It’s impossible to discuss the ending of Everything Everywhere All At Once without discussing one of the film’s most important symbols: the everything bagel. The climax takes place in an IRS building where Evelyn and other agents of the Alphaverse take their last stand against Jobu Tupaki, a variant of Evelyn’s own daughter Joy and whose multiversal powers resulted from Alphaverse-Evelyn’s experiments. It is in this scene where the everything bagel is first mentioned.
“I got bored one day, then I put everything in a bagel… everything. All my hopes and dreams, my old report cards, every breed of dog, every personal ad on Craigslist… sesame… poppy seed… salt, and it collapsed in on itself. ‘Cause you see, when you really put everything on a bagel, it becomes this… the truth.”
The everything bagel might look like anyone’s standard breakfast treat - round, with a hole in the middle, and sprinkled with sesame seeds - but this isn’t your everyday bagel. Instead of serving up carbs and morning satisfaction, this bagel transforms into a sort of cosmic black hole, ready to suck in any poor soul that comes into contact with it. Forget cream cheese - this bagel is serving up existential dread.
Tupaki keeps this ominous bagel in a pristine, all-white temple, but that circle shape has been occurring almost everywhere throughout the movie. Audiences might have noticed the bagel, or the mere mention of the round shape, before Tupaki even explains what the bagel is. Tupaki’s striking circular hairpiece, which she puts on in the temple scene, makes her look like she’s carrying the bagel on her head. In the early scene in the IRS office with Inspector Deirdre, she’s repeatedly drawing black circles on Evelyn’s tax papers, like she’s stamping the bagel’s mark on her life. And then there’s the washing machine door, a literal spinning circle of monotony, echoing Evelyn’s spiraling existence. Even her party speech talks about everyone just going around in circles.
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This endless loop, along with the everything bagel, becomes a symbol of dissatisfaction, emptiness, and disappointment. It’s like the bagel gobbles up all meaning and purpose, turning life into an endless void. Tupaki takes this despair and wears it like a badge, embodying the nothingness the bagel represents. And what does the bagel say? Life is meaningless, hopes and dreams? Forget about them. The everything bagel becomes the ultimate symbol of nihilism, where life feels empty, and purposes seems to vanish into a never-ending, soul-sucking vortex.
Tupaki’s power to see and feel everything everywhere all at once leads her to believe that nothing really matters, in any and every single universe. Her main goal, then, is to use an everything bagel — the literalization of everything not mattering — to suck all of the multiverse into an infinite void of nothingness. Tupaki tries to convince Evelyn of her nihilistic vision, showing her how in every universe Evelyn’s attempt to keep her family together will always fail. This is why Tupaki has been searching for Evelyn, so that she can finally find someone who can understand why nothing matters and join her in the everything bagel’s path of destruction. Even in her quest to end the multiverse, Tupaki would rather not be alone in orchestrating all of oblivion.
Waymond Wang and the Power of Love and Kindness
Image via A24
When Evelyn seemingly succumbs to Jobu Tupaki’s nihilism, her husband Waymond gives her an alternate point of view. Rather than be lost in the chaos and infinite nothingness of the universe, Waymond finds a more open and optimistic belief. In a universe where Evelyn becomes a Kung-Fu action star, Waymond tells Evelyn, “You tell me it's a cruel world and we're all running around in circles. I know that. I've been on this earth just as many days as you.” He knows how someone like Jobu Tupaki can come from a place of despair and pessimism when faced with such inevitable doom and gloom. However, he finds a more meaningful outlook. Waymond states, “When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I've learned to survive through everything.” He ultimately calls himself a “fighter,” and it is this optimism that ultimately convinces Evelyn that Jobu Tupaki is wrong, that there is more to living and existing than a void of nothingness.
Evelyn’s own Waymond (from her same universe) provides similar words of optimism that help her find the will to fight for what matters. “I know you are all fighting because you are scared and confused. I'm confused too,” Waymond explains, “All day, I don't know what the heck is going on. But somehow this feels like it's all my fault.” With the threat of their laundromat business being seized by the IRS, and with doubts surrounding his marriage to Evelyn and his intention to divorce her, what Waymond’s life has become is just one example in which someone can find it difficult to find hope. This is especially significant when taking into consideration the American Dream and how Waymond brought Evelyn to the United States from China. If his marriage and business are falling apart, is the American Dream even real? Was it all worth it? However, rather than give up on everything, Waymond finds the strength to confront life’s unexpected challenges through kindness: “I don't know. The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please. Be kind, especially when we don't know what's going on.”
This is exactly the lesson that Evelyn learns and applies in her fight to stop, and save, Jobu Tupaki. At the IRS building, rather than fight her Alphaverse adversaries through pure violence, she instead uses her multiversal powers to grant them some form of happiness — after all, with great power comes great responsibility. While Jobu Tupaki makes her way towards the void that is the everything bagel, Evelyn gives the people what they want, from their BDSM fantasies to even giving tax auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) the love that she deserves — in an alternate universe where people have hot dogs for fingers, Evelyn and Deirdre are in love. Evelyn gives them back the hope and happiness that opposes Jobu Tupaki’s nihilism.
Nothing Really Matters in the End, Except…
Once Evelyn reaches Jobu Tupaki (who is simultaneously her daughter Joy), she, Waymond, and even Evelyn’s estranged father Gong Gong (James Hong) attempt to pull Tupaki away from the void. Despite the generational trauma between Gong Gong and Evelyn, and now Evelyn and Joy, they all find hope in keeping their family together. But Jobu Tupaki needs a little more convincing.
Just as Evelyn seemingly is ready to let go of her daughter, she doubles down on her love for her and explains why that is enough meaning for them to hold onto. Evelyn reiterates the words and perspective of Jobu Tupaki, “Maybe it's like you said. Maybe there is something out there, some new discovery that will make us feel like even smaller pieces of shit. Something that explains why you still went looking for me through all of this noise.” But even when advances in science and technology make it seem like people are as insignificant as some rocks, even when nothing seems to matter, Evelyn tells her daughter, “no matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always, always, want to be here with you.” Joy isn’t yet ready to accept this, “Here, all we get are a few specks of time where any of this actually makes any sense.” But Evelyn refuses to let go of her daughter and says, “Then I will cherish these few specks of time.” The two embrace and Jobu Tupaki, through Joy’s reignited love for her mother, abandons the everything bagel’s meaningless void for something worth living for.
The emotional climax between Evelyn and Joy isn’t your run-of-the-mill, cliche moment of vulnerability. It’s a breakthrough - a genuine, gut-punching acknowledgment of their wounds. The fact that they even get to the point where they can vocally express to each other that they’re hurt is monumental, especially given the cultural context of their mother-daughter dynamic. In traditional Chinese familial relationships, hierarchy is regarded with utmost importance. The older generation is always right, and the younger generation is expected to toe the line, respect their elders, and follow the rules. If someone’s above you, you respect them, no questions asked. Parents are never expected to apologize, simply because they’re never supposed to be wrong. But here’s the catch: no one is right all the time, not even our elders. That’s where the tension in the movie bubbles up, simmering just beneath the surface.
This dynamic is all too real in Everything Everywhere All At Once. From the very start, you can feel the uncomfortable, unaddressed tension in Evelyn and Joy’s relationship. It’s not loud, it’s not in-your-face - it’s that quiet, suffocating tension where everything is left unsaid. Joy’s frustration simmers under the weight of her mother’s expectations, and Evelyn’s passive-aggressive reactions reflect that deep-rooted belief that confrontation, especially from a child to her elder, just isn’t done. And that’s what makes their confrontation in the parking lot so raw, so powerful. It’s a moment that cuts deep for anyone who’s grown up in that cultural bubble. They finally go head-to-head with each other, laying bare the things they dislike, the hurts that have been festering for so long. Yet, despite their differences, Evelyn chooses Joy, and is willing to fight for her. No matter what universe, no matter what reality, Evelyn would go to the literal end of the world just to show Joy that life is worth living, even when there’s no meaning. Despite the cultural context, everyone can relate to the messy, beautiful essence of parenthood that Evelyn experiences with Joy.
In Evelyn’s universe, everything is set right, despite the difficulties of life. She and Waymond rekindle their marriage, Joy is happy to be with her family, and all together they are willing to face any challenge, even the IRS. Maybe Jobu Tupaki was right: nothing matters. But Waymond was also equally right: If nothing matters, then we get to choose what does. We have the choice to look at the bright side of things, and we get to choose who matters to us the most. Even something as trivial as doing laundry and taxes can mean the most if it means doing it with the love of your life.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is now streaming on Max in the U.S.
Image via A24
Image via A24 
Image via A24 
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