Film review: Everything Everywhere All at Once
The multiverse is back in this divisive cult hit
The Argentine provocateur Gaspar Noé has long used his films “to shock and to disturb”, said Kevin Maher in The Times. So far, he’s done “gross-out violence” (I Stand Alone), explicit sex (Love) and also sexual violence (Irreversible). This film contains not a single “shot of excess”, and yet it might well be the director’s “most disturbing” yet. Françoise Lebrun and the Italian director Dario Argento play an elderly couple – identified simply as Lui and Elle – who are stumbling “painfully” towards the end of their lives in their poky flat in Paris. He is a writer with heart problems, and she is a psychiatrist who may have dementia. Sitting somewhere between Amour and The Father, the film is a “brilliantly executed” meditation on “the fate that awaits us all – decrepitude and death”.
“It makes sense” that Noé, that inveterate taboo-buster, should have ended up probing a subject that few of us “willingly contemplate”, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times. “In the end, our exits are solitary”, and Noé underscores this point by “making the whole film in split screen” so that the two characters are separated at all times by a black vertical line. This sounds gimmicky, but it gradually delivers “huge emotional power”. Still, this “mournful” film is “a conundrum: so wrenching it feels hard to ask an audience to give it their time, so honest it demands they do”.
Powerful as it is, there are some missteps, said Charlotte O’Sullivan in the London Evening Standard, such as a “contrived” plot line revolving around “the siren call of drugs”; and the whole thing “moves at the pace of an especially sleepy snail”. But it does offer “a fresh angle on human frailty”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Is the Gaza war tearing U.S. campuses apart?
Today's Big Question Protests at Columbia University, other institutions, pit free speech against student safety
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
DOJ settles with Nassar victims for $138M
Speed Read The settlement includes 139 sexual abuse victims of the former USA Gymnastics doctor
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
14 recent scientific breakthroughs
In Depth From photos of the infant universe to an energy advancement that could save the planet
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Sarah Langan recommends 6 women-centric horror books
Feature The horror novelist recommends works by Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 spacious homes for car lovers
Feature Featuring a 14-car showroom in Oregon and a Bentley-style apartment in Florida
By The Week Staff Published
-
6 serene homes in Vermont
Features Featuring a four-level Shaker barn in Hartland and a Scandinavian-inspired home in Stowe
By The Week US Published
-
Amanda Montell's 6 favorite books that will expand your knowledge
Feature The linguist recommends works by Mary Roach, Alice Carrière, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Rowan Beaird recommends 6 compelling books from the 1950s
Feature The author recommends works by Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 spacious homes with great rec rooms
Feature Featuring a suspended fireplace in Arizona and a marine-themed home in Maine
By The Week Published
-
Recipe: gnocchi di spinaci (spinach gnocchi)
The Week Recommends Forget the potatoes for this gnocchi made of the 'classic combination' of spinach and ricotta
By The Week UK Published
-
Stephen Graham Jones' 6 scary books with deeper meanings
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Stephen King, Sara Gran, and more
By The Week US Published