Dear Michelle Yeoh, You had me at hot dog fingers

Last night I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once. You know, that movie that Michelle Yeoh won a Golden Globe for? The one everyone is talking about, everywhere, all at once?

Here's my post-viewing scoop: I'm not okay. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop remembering the shuddering sobs, or that super awkward hiccup that burst from my mouth when I was trying really, really hard to cry quietly because heaven forbid my partner should see me crying (spoiler: he's seen me cry, a lot).

There are a lot of aspects to this movie that are undeniably and absolutely perfectly incredible (I feel like I should recast that sentence but meh, you love what you love). But what hit me the most was not the hot dog fingers or the everything bagel metaphor that feels so ridiculous that I couldn't look away. 

No. It was how safely I was taken on an overwhelming journey of chaos and confusion into a narrative that, when all the universe-jumping, yellow-sweater-wearing, butt-plug-using, kung fu epic glitter bomb that is this movie is stripped away, what's left is a story that is so achingly raw and real: depression and suicide, and how both are working very hard to destroy a daughter and her mother.

Hear me out: these themes are iterated again and again in films, TV (13 Reasons Why, anyone?), and literature, and I feel like a lot of depression and suicide/suicidal ideation stories sort of feel like voyeurism and exhibitionism and emo ennui that is just cringy and unfair to those who live with mental illness.

This movie changes that by using a genre that is ridiculous and purely entertaining to start with: absurdism, comedy, and sci-fi wrapped into one everything bagel. 

If EEAAO (I love acronyms because I’m lazy) was told without everything bagels or hot dog fingers or ridiculous ways characters have to use their bodies to jump universes (paper cuts, no, hard pass) it would feel a bit like trauma porn. IMHO anyways. I mean, how can you create a story about very real existential crises, or intergenerational trauma, or hopelessness, or what it means to be an immigrant in a very different place, or sexuality or … and to the crux, or maybe even the outcome, of all of that: mental illness, depression, suicide, and get people to pay attention without feeling undone themselves? It's hard enough living in this world where many folks are experiencing those exact same challenges. But to watch a movie that reiterates the very hard and very real experiences without wrapping it in comedy and absurdism and sci-fi? Yeah, I can’t do it. Can you?

This is why I love EEAAO. It’s a movie that says, "Mom, I feel hopeless, I feel helpless. I need you and I'm so, so scared. I need you."

To which Mom (Evelyn) replies: "I will fight for you. No matter what. Even if it's fighting against the everything bagel that is All There Is. " (I don’t think she actually said that verbatim, but it’s in my head now.)

I'm not really sure a layered story like this could be quite as impactful without the absurd sci-fi wrapping. I think it's precisely because of this wrapping that EEAAO is a story that actually makes sense and drills deep into so many uncomfortable layers of human nature and experience but still, at the roll of the credits, we know we'll be okay.

Well, maybe I won't. I'm still not okay. But I'm going to go watch it again anyways. You should too.