distraction & meaning in everything everywhere all at once
mental health in the multiverse
I’m so proud to say that I’m back with another series of posts digging into how mental health and relationship issues show up in a movie. So excited that it wasn’t a one-time thing! This time I’ll be discussing the film Everything Everywhere All At Once, directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, or The Daniels as I’ll call them going forward. There is so much happening in this movie! It’s ostensibly a sci-fi film, but at its heart, it’s a family drama, so there are tons of topics worth discussing. In this post I’ll be talking about distraction.
trigger warnings & spoiler alerts
This movie is full of feels, so it’s hard to say which parts could bring up something heavy. One of the biggest themes revolves around mother/daughter relationships, which is a complicated relationship for many people. The plot of Everything Everywhere All At Once is also kind of all over the place and non-linear, so spoilers abound. Take care.
a quick summary of everything everywhere all at once
Everything Everywhere All At Once is kind of wacky to summarize. It’s a film about the multiverse, so it’s one of those movies where there are several versions of each character in the film. In The Daniels’ multiverse, every time we’re faced with a decision, a new branch of our story is created. With the thousands of decisions each of us makes moment to moment, there are an infinite number of universes floating around in the multiverse. But ultimately, this film is about a struggling family, all taking place within the course of one complicated, messy day.
the wang family in our universe
Evelyn and Waymond Wang are hosting a Chinese New Year party at their struggling coin laundry business this evening, and unbeknownst to Evelyn, Waymond spends the day trying to serve her with divorce papers. They’re also currently hosting Gong Gong (an honorific meaning grandfather), Evelyn’s father, who is visiting from China and with whom Evelyn has a complicated relationship.
Meanwhile, Evelyn and Waymond’s adult daughter, Joy, tries to obtain Evelyn’s blessing to introduce her girlfriend of three years, Jackie, to Gong Gong. Evelyn objects to the introduction due to her apparent unease at having a gay daughter. But before we make it to the party, Evelyn and Waymond have to get through a meeting at the local IRS headquarters where they are being audited.
the wangs in the rest of the multiverse
While these more mundane concerns dominate the Wang family’s attention, a mysterious “great evil”–called Jobu Tapaki–terrorizes the multiverse. These two realities begin to collide when Alpha Waymond–the version of Waymond who lives in a universe called the Alpha-verse–inhabits the consciousness of our Waymond. He believes our Evelyn is the key to defeating Jobu Tapaki. We later discover that part of what makes Evelyn most equipped to confront this feared being is that Jobu Tapaki is actually her daughter, Joy.
everything, everywhere, all distracted
A film about the multiverse is an exceptionally adept vehicle for demonstrating the impact and pitfalls of distraction. In a single scene Jobu Tapaki and Evelyn might be kung fu masters, human piñatas, their normal selves at the coin laundry, and then they are a couple of rocks. Following the story feels a bit like switching between 17 browser tabs, except in the minds of the characters. Jobu often uses a tilt of her head to switch the channels of her reality, which I think is a sensation to which many of us can relate.
the embodiment of distraction
There’s an origin story behind how Joy becomes the being Jobu Tapaki, but in terms of discussing distraction, what you need to know is that Jobu Tapaki has learned to inhabit the consciousness of every version of Joy all at the same time. So while our Joy is struggling to connect with her mother, another version of Joy in a different universe is a professional golfer and another is a Mexican wrestler. And Jobu Tapaki experiences all of these realities–and an infinite number of others–simultaneously.
“I got bored one day and put everything on a bagel.”
Jobu Tapaki has been traveling through the multiverse looking for Evelyn–perhaps our Evelyn. Ultimately, it seems Jobu Tapaki would like Eveyln to experience reality the same way Jobu Tapaki does: everything, everywhere, all at once. In one scene, Jobu explains her philosophy: “I got bored one day, and I put everything on a bagel. Everything. All my hopes and dreams, my old report cards, every breed of dog, every last 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: Nothing matters.”
Jobu Tapaki’s bagel, a black hole of distraction where nothing matters
the attention economy & the cost of caring about everything
In the last film I reviewed, Vengeance, one of the characters, Quentin, shares the thought that it’s “the defining truth of our time…Everything means everything, so nothing means anything.” I didn’t intentionally choose to write about two films in a row with such similarly nihilistic characters. But if I stopped and thought about it, I could probably think of other similar soliloquies in other films because Quentin makes an interesting point. It really does feel like a defining truth in our time that somehow everything has come to mean everything.
art imitating life in the age of distraction
He and Jobu are pointing out what we–as a generation–struggle with, perhaps the most. In our attention economy, we’re being strategically conditioned to believe, somewhere deep inside ourselves, that everything is of equal importance. Or that it should be. Through the lens of art imitates life, it’s not surprising that we see characters on screen grappling with this bleak morality of our time. Somehow we’ve found ourselves in a place where it feels like we don’t get to choose what matters to us.
when everything matters the same amount
There are a handful of issues and people in my life who hold a higher ranking in my personal hierarchy of importance. These are the areas where I prioritize my sense of urgency. I’m sure you can relate. In terms of distraction, holding onto my impassioned focus on these topics is a formidable task because I am constantly told that something else is just as urgent. That thousands of other somethings are just as urgent.
As I sit and try to make a point, my mind is completely flooded with those somethings: Gaza and gun rights and trans youth and immigration and inflation and our two-party political system and labor unions and trade wars and misogyny and unceded land and abortion and and and. Not to mention the somethings that are closer to home like I broke my water bottle and vacation and the leak in my ceiling and what’s for dinner and my office needs dusting and watercolor and robot mops and holiday season and budgeting and and and.
Sometimes it feels like there is messaging that we’re doing something wrong if we’re not able to give equally of ourselves to everything. All of these things do really matter. But each of us as individuals…it’s an impossible task. Many of us–most of us?–have come up with a particular manner of coping with the pressure: more distraction. Internet memes and doom scrolling and reality TV and snack runs and weed and video games and targeted ads are now thrown into the mix. Where does it end?
“I am constantly told that something else is just as urgent. That thousands of other somethings are just as urgent.”
Is it any wonder that Jobu–completely saturated with literally everything in every world, including a world where everyone has hotdog fingers–is no longer able to elevate anything as more important than anything else? What we finally come to understand is that Jobu’s power of omnipresence and omniversality brings her no joy (no pun intended), and all she wants is for it to stop.
meaning within the distraction
What is it doing to us that the funny video of a stranger’s Ring camera takes up the same amount of space in our Instagram feed as real-life video of an active war zone and our neighbor’s kid’s soccer game? I’m not here for answers, I’m just here for cinema and mental health. But Everything Everywhere All At Once asks us to be curious about this issue. There’s an existential reality that we can’t escape while we watch the Wang family grapple with what matters to them most: we literally cannot give everything the same amount of attention. So what in our lives matters enough to be worthy of our focused attention?
a moment of focused presence
One of my very favorite scenes in this movie is toward the end when Evelyn has made her way through her hero’s journey and has come to understand what matters to her most. She and her family are back at IRS headquarters, heading to the meeting that will be their last chance to get their taxes in order otherwise they could lose the coin laundry. There’s significant build-up to this meeting. It’s an urgent matter. But Evelyn stops her husband before he steps away for a moment to give him all of her attention. She holds his hand and looks in his eyes. She kisses him, allowing her full self to be present in the moment. And it’s clear that their relationship is going to be ok. Waymond can feel the meaning of Evelyn’s attention. No distractions.
“what difference could it make to let go of distraction, even for just a few seconds at a time?”
The entire interaction is over in a matter of seconds, yet it changes everything. Until the events that unfold in the movie, we only ever see Evelyn carrying on several conversations at once, buried in several different tasks at the same time. The fact that she is drifting further from connection with her husband, daughter, father, customers–literally everyone–has completely escaped her attention because of so many competing priorities. Not to be clichéd, but it really makes you think: what difference could it make to let go of distraction, even for just a few seconds at a time?
further distraction &/or focus
I try to avoid offering advice wherever possible, but just as a closing thought: if what you need is less distraction, maybe it’s ok if you don’t click on anything below. I trust you to decide.
If what you want is further engagement with the subject, here’s what came to mind for me while I wrote this post:
An article about the possibility of Type 2 ADHD, which is linked to our cultural manner of being with technology and becomes apparent later in life than traditional ADHD, for which symptoms normally present in childhood even if undiagnosed
Season 3, episode 18 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Earshot” — Buffy can’t stop reading people’s minds, so she is no longer able to interact with the world (trigger warning: there’s a subplot to this episode regarding school shootings and suicide)
The Tainted Cup – a Sherlock-esque mystery where the two main characters’ ability to free themselves from distraction features prominently
I’ve still got more thoughts to share about Everything Everywhere All At Once. Next time I’ll process the concept of failure and the capacity for joy. I hope you’ll join me then!
Thank you for reading! I’m Trina, and I’m a therapist in Texas. I wrote this post myself using my own words and ideas. I used AI to help me optimize titles, headings, keywords, and meta descriptions for SEO purposes. AI also gave me some tips on how to share this post on social media. I will always let you know if/when/how I use AI in my blog posts.
If you’re in Texas and looking for a therapist, give me a shout. I’d love to learn more about you and your story.
