Slaughtering a House Made of Everything Everywhere All at Once
January 17, 2023
Read time: 5 minutes
I once had a train of thought about looking at time and space differently. I felt like Einstein. You see, Einstein enhanced what Isaac Newton discovered about time and space. Newton said time and space were absolute, sort of. Einstein said time and space were relative, sort of. Einstein’s discovery helped our collective understanding of time and space immensely.
So, there I was, thinking of time and space differently. At the end of this train of thought, I was told by a trusted person, “Get a hold of yourself, kid! Time and space are relative, for Christmas’s sake!” They were right. I learned a painful lesson…I am not Einstein. So, it goes.
***
There is so much to be said about the film Everything Everywhere All at Once. I only have a couple of words: I think the film was awesome. I had a lot of fun watching it. I sat there thinking, “Oh my gosh, I need to see more movies like this.”
But come on, let’s press the issue...what is really happening in Everything Everywhere All at Once? It’s a chaotic movie and a roller coaster of emotions. Our main character, Evelyn, is thrust into a new reality of time and space at warp speed. One moment, Evelyn is managing a laundromat. The next moment, she’s a rock. How is any of this possible?
The reality is that time and space are bending to Evelyn’s liking. Other times, time and space are bent to another character’s liking. Then conflict ensues. And I find myself inside a dandy movie between the forces of good and evil.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is filled with all sorts of cool lines and symbols, and awesome stuff like that. For instance, one repeated line is “nothing matters.” Another repeated line is “statistical inevitability.” I’d love to say that Everything Everywhere All at Once is a statistical inevitability. It’s definitely not. This kind of art takes work. Likewise, this kind of work takes artistic talent. Acting like the movie is “statistically inevitable” suggests that we can turn water into wine without using any muscle fibers in our bodies. The “statistical inevitability” of Everything Everywhere All at Once is an insult to the directors, Daniels. They did a great job and should be proud of themselves.
***
I have a favorite from the genre…when time and space are being bent:
It is Slaughterhouse-Five.
Slaughterhouse-Five is about our earthling friend, Billy Pilgrim. Billy meets aliens, learns about their perception of time and space, and Billy becomes “unstuck in time.” He bounces around moments of his life, kind of like Evelyn bounces around universes. One moment Billy is giving a speech accepting an award for optometry. The next moment, Billy is playing little league baseball.
Here’s your spoiler:
The theory goes like this, Billy Pilgrim was not actually visited by aliens. Billy Pilgrim is not actually “unstuck in time.”
Billy bounces around time and space in his life, but he always returns to World War Two.
Billy Pilgrim has post-traumatic stress disorder. The keyword is “stress.” Billy is stressed out all the time. Why is he stressed? Because of his horrible-horrible-horrible experiences as a soldier at war. He was present for the bombing of Dresden. He was present for all sorts of horrible things that he cannot shake out of his memory.
So, Billy copes by believing in aliens bending time and space. When the aliens look at Billy, they see a baby at one end and a corpse at the other. This helps Billy. He convinces himself that none of those tens of thousands of people who died at Dresden are actually dead…at one end of their bodies is a baby, at the other end is a corpse, and in between is everyone other age. Poor Billy is always troubled.
***
Billy’s demise makes me think of poor Evelyn’s demise in her original universe. Billy, with his waning psyche, is being taken care of by his daughter. It’s painful to read. At any given moment in Everything Everywhere All at Once, Evelyn tries to gain new power. It is clear, each time Evelyn gains a new power, she subjects herself in her original universe to a lot of pain...staplers to the forehead, papercuts, and all.
In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim may be war-torn and disturbed...but Billy tells us he wants one thing on his gravestone:
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
Billy knows his pain. He knows everyone else knows his pain. It’s evident when his daughter takes care of him. It’s evident with all of his weeping throughout the novel. He wants us to all know he is going to make it out a-okay. When people say “Nothing matters” in Everything Everywhere All at Once, that is painful. Because we end the movie seeing everything from all the Evelyns. It’s painful to see Evelyn choke as a singer. It’s painful to see her wrestle with Waymond’s heart.
It can all be incredibly overwhelming and shockingly painful. And this movie and this book know best…somewhere down the rabbit hole of unpacking the realities of pain and time and space is, hopefully, a big ball of love.
***
As the movie screen morphed in front of me and ninjas came at me from everywhere out of everything all at once, I had a thought in my head. That thought was, “I cannot believe I’ve been sucked into another warp speed roller coaster that is revealing the emotional center of reality.”
Then I thought to myself, “I need to give my mom and dad a hug.”
Then I thought about Einstein and Slaughterhouse-Five.
Then I thought to myself, “Wow! I need to see more ninja movies.”
Everything Everywhere All at Once: 5/5 Stars
Slaughterhouse-Five: 5/5 Stars
Time for a Joke:
A girl and her boyfriend are walking through a forest.
She looks nervous. Her boyfriend asks, "What's wrong?"
She responds, "I don't know...these trees seem kind of shady."