All of the SPOILERS are ahead for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Do yourself a favor and experience this highly-praised movie now playing in theaters before reading about it below.
Between the hot dog fingers, existential bagel, fanny pack fight scene and the multiverse whiplash in between, Everything Everywhere All At Once couldn’t be a more apt title for the latest A24 film. The science fiction action film starring Michelle Yeoh takes audiences on an original journey that feels like The Matrix on steroids. There’s a lot to settle into once you’ve seen it, so let’s take some time to break down the Everything Everywhere All At Once ending.
The movie follows Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn, who is the co-owner of a laundromat with her longtime husband Waymond, played by former Indiana Jones and The Goonies child actor Ke Huy Quan. Evelyn’s life is all over the place as she is going through an IRS audit with Jamie Lee Curtis’ Deirdre Beaubeirdra, her husband is secretly getting ready to file for divorce and her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), is just about over her family and their lack of acceptance for her same-sex relationship. But then, Evelyn enters the multiverse.
How Multiverses Work In Everything Everywhere All At Once
Before we get to the Everything Everywhere All At Once ending, we need to talk about how the multiverse was explained in the movie. Rather than multiple universes simply existing separate from one another, they are all connected and based on every option attached to every decision we make throughout our lives. For example, one of the first multiverse lives Evelyn experiences is one where she breaks up with Waymond before getting married to him, continues to live near home and becomes a famous actress instead.
Evelyn’s access point to the multiverse is another version of Waymond, who briefly takes over his body in her life when he wants to communicate with her. As we learn later in the film, the Waymond who gets in contact with the Evelyn we follow throughout Everything Everywhere All At Once, is from a place called the “Alphaverse,” which found a way to reach the multiverse. They also invented technology that finds ways from one verse to the next and as Alphaverse Waymond teaches Evelyn, it’s often the wildest acts that allow the characters to verse-jump. Such as Evelyn having to confess her love to her IRS agent Deirdre in order to jump into another verse.
Who Is Jobu Tapaki And What’s With Her Everything Bagel?
Evelyn is introduced to the multiverse by way of Alphaverse Waymond because he believes she is the one who can save the universe from the movie’s villain, Jobu Tapaki. Jobu Tapaki is the Alphaverse version of Evelyn’s daughter, Joy, who ended up verse-jumping so much that she is able to experience every multiverse all at once. This has made her impossibly powerful and so overwhelmed with the vastness of the universe that she has taken on a “nothing matters” opinion in the extreme, leading her to put the fate of the multiverse in jeopardy.
Jobu Tapaki decides to use her immense powers to make the ultimate “everything bagel” where she places a ton of random things from the multiverse on top of a bagel. It creates an all-consuming black void that has the power to set off doomsday, and more importantly for her, destroy herself and put her out of the misery she’s feeling as Jobu Tapaki.
What Happened At The End Of Everything Everywhere All At Once
In order to stop Jobu Tapaki from destroying the multiverse, Evelyn decides that she must become her equal in order to defeat her. And thus, Evelyn travels to a myriad number of universes, picking up skills from them all that allow her to be a great opponent to her daughter. With that, Evelyn comes to learn about Jobu Tapaki’s motivations and that her actions are the result of some of the problems the mother and daughter have been facing in multiple multiverses. Joy doesn't feel accepted or welcome in her family, and she then goes off the rails in an attempt to suck everyone else into her mood.
Throughout the events of Everything Everywhere All At Once, instead of feeling hopelessness when she gets in touch with the multiverse, Evelyn taps into the importance of love and kindness in her life and how grateful she is, especially, to have her husband Waymond a part of it, despite being previously annoyed with his incessant need to put googly eyes on everything. In the epic final fight of the movie, Evelyn places a googly eye on her third eye, and fights everyone in the army against her by doing acts she knows will make them happy. This, in turn, helps her defeat this doomsday and mend things with her family and even tax inspector. In the end, despite the often meaninglessness and vastness of life, it’s love that can fight the evil that is hopelessness. It’s the perfect metaphor for life itself and how different perspectives on life can alter how dearly we hold our existence.
Here’s Why Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn Was “The One”
The last question that remains is how Evelyn, of all the people in the multiverse, was the right person to save it. The answer is revealed in the movie itself and it’s kind of beautiful. The other versions of Evelyn in other multiverses are often accomplished, distinct people who have chosen a specific calling. However, there’s a lot of untapped potential and missed paths for this Evelyn that allows for her to become the right match for Jobu Tapaki.
The Evelyn we follow throughout Everything Everywhere All At Once has a lot in disarray and room for finding a gratefulness for her life. When she realizes all the different ways her life could go, and still finds herself fighting for her own life and happy to be within her body instead of one from the multiverse, she masters the conflict that causes Jobu Tapaki to create the Everything Bagel.
Check out CinemaBlend's interviews with the Everything Everywhere All At Once cast and get ready for the other upcoming 2022 movies that are on the way next.
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FAQs
What is the significance of the bagel in Everything Everywhere All at Once? ›
The bagel represents everything the character holds dear: hopes, dreams, memories, and even mundane things like old report cards and personal ads. Topped with a mix of sesame, poppy seed, and salt, it physically embodies the character's innermost thoughts and desires.
What happened at the end of Everything Everywhere All at Once? ›In its final form, Everything Everywhere All at Once ends with queer protagonist Joy Wang (Stephanie Hsu) and her mother Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) accepting their differences and mending their relationship – after Joy's alter ego almost ends reality itself – with Evelyn also reuniting with husband Waymond (Ke Huy ...
What is the message behind Everything Everywhere All at Once? ›The central message is about the importance of kindness
Despite all the inter-dimensional weirdness, there's a genuine emotional pay-off to Everything Everywhere All At Once. In the film, the existence of a multiverse turns Evelyn and Joy into nihilists. If anything is possible, then nothing matters.
The googly eyes represent Waymond's perspective on life. He also believes like Joy does that life is big, scary and often confusing, but instead of that filling him with dread, it empowers him to be kind.
What is the bagel analogy? ›What is this? The circular shape of a bagel is a metaphor for the “circle of life” and the age-old adage “what goes around comes around.” As children, my brother and I would indulge in eating toasted onion bagels with butter, but as we have grown up, we have graduated to undeniably healthier veggie sandwiches.
What is the everything bagel concept? ›An everything bagel is a type of bagel baked with a mix of toppings. The exact ingredients vary, but recipes often include garlic flakes, onion flakes, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds with caraway seeds, kosher salt, and oats also often added.
Why did Evelyn stab Waymond? ›She blamed Waymond and distanced herself from him physically and emotionally. Then she inflicted the same disparaging judgment upon Joy, leaving Joy with more than a little trauma of her own.
Why did Waymond want a divorce? ›Waymond Wang is the tritagonist of the 2022 science-fiction action comedy film, Everything Everywhere All at Once. He is Evelyn's affable husband who co-owns the laundromat alongside her. He loves Evelyn deeply, but wants a divorce to force her to deal with their strained relationship.
What was the Chinese at the end of Everything Everywhere All at Once? ›Everyone, from James Hong to Jamie Lee Curtis was amazing in their roles. And when I say roles you have to remember that every character is multiple people, as are we all. At the very end of the movie the title Everything Everywhere All at Once along with the Mandarin characters: 天马行空.
What is nihilism in Everything Everywhere All at Once? ›It's called Optimistic Nihilism, or Existential Nihilism. Since there is no imposed purpose, we get to choose our own. There are no principles to live by, only the ones we decide on. Every mistake we've ever made and every moment of sadness and sorrow will one day disappear.
Was Everything Everywhere All at Once about depression? ›
From ADHD to depression, the movie shows mental health complications through a very different and most probably first of its kind multiverse ride.
Is Everything Everywhere All at Once about ADHD? ›Laura talks with film writer and editor Ariel Fisher about Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once and its many connections to ADHD. How making the movie was an ADHD “aha” moment for director Daniel Kwan. How the film itself feels like a depiction of the ADHD brain.
Who is the third eye in everything everywhere all at once? ›“Everything Everywhere All At Once” sets new standards for Asian representation. Evelyn Wang, played by Michelle Yeoh, places a symbolic third eye on her forehead in the form of a googly eye.
What is the difference between Everything Bagel and googly eyes? ›That dichotomy between absurdity and meaning is best illustrated by Everything Everywhere's two key symbols: googly eyes, and an everything bagel. The two symbols visually oppose one another, with the villain Jobu Tupaki's bagel being black with a white center, while the googly eyes are white with a black center.
What is the googly eyes philosophy? ›The googly eyes symbolise Waymond's (the husband's) philosophy of life that even if existence is meaningless, one can find joy within it. He puts them on everything he can find. Evelyn, who is dissatisfied with her life and husband, removes them and rejects his attempts at humour and happiness.
What was the bagel guys name? ›Well, it happened to Rob “Bagel Boy” Camilletti in May 1986.
How did bagel get its name? ›To honor the known equine enthusiast, a Polish baker shaped his obwarzanek into circles meant to resemble boot stirrups, the German term for which is “beugel.” Over the next hundred years, bagels grew in popularity, with songs being written and sung about them across the nation.
Is the bagel nihilism? ›Here, the bagel represents the nihilistic philosophy of the film. Her character portrays the ideals of a mix between absurdism and nihilism: nothing matters, but isn't that the whole point? She takes action out of a desire for chaos because she believes no matter what she does it won't really matter.
What do the googly eyes represent in Everything Everywhere All At Once? ›The googly eyes come to represent the ability to enjoy life and be in the present moment. They're an affirmation that even if you accept the cosmic vastness of the universe, it's still possible to find meaning.
What does it mean to get the bagel? ›in tennis, to win a set with a score of 6-0 against your opponent.
What does Jobu Tupaki represent? ›
Jobu Tupaki represents Joy, who is hurting because of her strained relationship with her mother. Jobu is the path of self-destruction that Joy is on.
Why was Joy mad at Evelyn? ›Evelyn and Joy have a strained relationship and they argue about Joy's tattoos and whether she should come out to Gong Gong as he is elderly and curmudgeonly. Joy thinks her mom is using Gong Gong as an excuse and that Evelyn herself is really uncomfortable with her daughter's sexuality.
Why is Evelyn the chosen one? ›Alpha-Waymond chooses Evelyn to save the multiverse because she's “so bad at everything” that she's “capable of anything.” No other Evelyns could understand what the Everything Everywhere All at Once villain Jobu Tapaki was going through because their feelings of desolation were not as strong.
Will there be a sequel to Everything Everywhere All At Once? ›Michelle Yeoh says 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' will not get a sequel. Last year's Everything Everywhere All At Once will not be getting a sequel, Michelle Yeoh has seemingly confirmed.
Did Evelyn divorce Waymond? ›When Evelyn is exposed to the Bagel enough that all of her multiverse selves are now acting self-destructive and cruel enough that one of them really goes through the divorce by signing the papers, Waymond is beyond heartbroken.
What does Evelyn say to Waymond? ›For the most part, Waymond Wang is a very likable character, which is why it's a gut-wrenching moment when Evelyn coldly told him that life without him was "beautiful.” Her quote is not just sad because of Waymond's heartbreaking reaction, but also because it highlights how much Evelyn hates her current variant.
What is Waymond Wang's personality? ›He's a super intelligent action hero with a lot of charm and immediately gets the attention of Evelyn, but ultimately turns out to be untrustworthy as he leaves her to die after not getting what he wants. This brings more attention to our universe Waymond and his compassion for Evelyn.
Is Everything Everywhere All at Once about mental illness? ›Suddenly, the viewer comes face-to-face with a version of their own emotional pain as the movie's fantastical scenes give way to something far more relatable: an unexpected but masterful story about mental health. There's Joy's depression, a powerful current beneath her casual facade.
What movie did China change the ending to? ›Propaganda and censorship are a given in communist China, where the tech-savvy are quick to point out differences in Western productions. The alternate ending to “Fight Club” has become alternate entertainment.
What happens at the end of the China Syndrome? ›How does the movie end? Jack takes over the control room with a pistol he takes from the security guard and threatens to flood the containment with radiation unless he is allowed to make a public statement.
Why is nihilism harmful? ›
The danger of active nihilism comes from its anarchic willingness to destroy society for the sake of freedom. The danger of passive nihilism comes from its conformist willingness to destroy freedom for the sake of society.
Why is nihilism so bad? ›It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.
Is nihilism a mental disorder? ›One of the main symptoms of Cotard delusion is nihilism. Nihilism is the belief that nothing has any value or meaning. It can also include the belief that nothing really exists. People with Cotard delusion feel as if they're dead or rotting away.
How many universes were there in everything everywhere all at once? ›There are two animated universes in Everything Everywhere All at Once, with the first one appearing early when Jobu is revealing Evelyn's ability to be "everywhere" like her.
Does everyone feel worthless sometimes? ›While everyone might feel worthless once in a while, it can become a serious problem if such feelings are chronic and pervasive. Fortunately, there are steps you can take that may help you feel better. Professional help is also available, including face-to-face psychotherapy, medications, or a combination of the two.
What is the root of all depression? ›There's no single cause of depression. It can occur for a variety of reasons and it has many different triggers. For some people, an upsetting or stressful life event, such as bereavement, divorce, illness, redundancy and job or money worries, can be the cause. Different causes can often combine to trigger depression.
Why are people with ADHD good at everything? ›Living with ADHD may give the person a different perspective on life and encourage them to approach tasks and situations with a thoughtful eye. As a result, some with ADHD may be inventive thinkers. Other words to describe them may be original, artistic, and creative. Being hyperfocused.
Do ADHD people think all the time? ›People in the ADHD world experience life more intensely, more passionately than neurotypicals. They have a low threshold for outside sensory experience because the day-to-day experience of their five senses and their thoughts is always on high volume.
Do people with ADHD have an all or nothing mentality? ›All-or-nothing thinking
Cognitive distortions in general are often associated with ADHD. For some, this manifests into all-or-nothing thinking, also known as 'splitting', or black-and-white thought patterns.
The authors indirectly argue the concept of cheating and the motivations one has to cheat excessively or less frequently. The authors, Dubner and Levitt, present their argument using credible quantitative evidence, a sly bit of irony, humor, and parenthesis.
What did the googly eyes mean in Everything Everywhere All at Once? ›
It also serves as an antithesis to the symbolism behind the everything bagel in the film: a pointless void that represents the general sense of emptiness in basic existence. The googly eyes remind viewers, and the characters in the movie, to find meaning, warmth and kindness even if life seems meaningless.
What does the bagel data also reflect? ›The bagel data also reflect how much personal mood seems to affect honesty. Weather, for instance, is a major factor. Unseasonably pleasant weather inspires people to pay at a higher rate. Unseasonably cold weather, meanwhile, makes people cheat prolifically; so do heavy rain and wind.
Who found the bagel? ›Still one other version dates the first bagels to the late 17th century in Austria, saying that bagels were invented in 1683 by a Viennese baker trying to pay tribute to the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski.
What is the origin story of bagel? ›Bagels have been widely associated with Ashkenazi Jews since the 17th century; they were first mentioned in 1610 in Jewish community ordinances in Kraków, Poland. Bagels are now a popular bread product in North America and Poland, especially in cities with a large Jewish population.
Has anyone ever been triple bageled? ›How many times has a triple bagel occurred? Since 1968 or during the Open Era, a triple bagel has only occurred five times at Grand Slam Tournament.
What happens at the end of bagel Girl? ›Book Ends: New gender aside, come the last chapter, months after the transformation, Bong Gi ends up the same way he started: somebody obese, and crippled by heinous habits that have made them physically undesireable, having wasted the beauty she was given.
Why did Jobu Tupaki create the Everything Bagel? ›The literal answer is that Jobu Tupaki, bored by life and its lack of meaning, wanted to build something. Of course, that something ends up being an everything bagel. An object of worship that sits just behind the veil in Jobu Tupaki's shrine, the cosmic everything bagel swirls in place. It's an object and the void.
What are the Chinese characters at the end of Everything Everywhere All at Once? ›At the very end of the movie the title Everything Everywhere All at Once along with the Mandarin characters: 天马行空.
What does Jobu want from Evelyn? ›Jobu Tupaki wanted Evelyn to understand that in full before giving in to the bagel's force, and hoped that Evelyn would talk her off the ledge somehow once she realized Jobu Tupaki's intentions.