Slight spoilers if you haven’t seen, but I also tried not to give away too much

Almost every person I follow on Film Twitter keeps talking about how movies are back. When three spidermen graced the screen together last December and box office ratings were smashed, it was tweeted both sincerely and in satire. When R. Patz’s Batman had a three hour movie become one of the top box office hits in recent years, the satire died down and people were tweeting earnestly that films were officially back.

Watching the trailers last night in my local Alamo Drafthouse, it felt like that Lady Gaga meme. “Bus, club, another club, another club, plane” – you know the one. Robert Egger’s The Northman was followed by The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent followed by Nope, Jordan Peele’s latest. That’s the moment that I was starting to believe that movies were finally coming back. I could see the next few weeks of my life spent in a big comfy leather chair, chowing down on buttery popcorn.

And then, the movie we had come to see, Everything Everywhere All At Once, started.

I’d argue movies had never really left (we had plenty of good pandemic movies!) therefore didn’t necessarily need to be welcomed back, but my God. Everything Everywhere feels like a 3 a.m. glass of water when you’ve been dehydrated for weeks.

Everything Everywhere All At Once follows Evelyn as she is trying to prepare for an IRS audit, while also fending off divorce papers from her husband, caring for her declining father, and judging her daughter’s life choices entirely too harshly. What comes next is something I don’t want to describe in detail because I truly believe the less you know about this movie going in, the better. All to say, Evelyn is launched into the multiverse where she must save the world and multiverse from total collapse.

Michelle Yeoh is the only woman I can think of who could pull this off. I mean, the way she navigates from martial arts to physical comedy to intense family drama is unparalleled in my opinion. Ke Huy Quan is also a force – navigating the different multiverse versions of Waymond with incredible ease. Stephanie Hsu just needs to be cast in everything. Not to mention Jenny Slate and Jamie Lee Curtis understood the assignment, which is essential in a movie like this.

This movie walks so many different lines and does so excellently. It’s ridiculous at parts, but never too much. It’s hilarious and I laughed out loud along with the rest of my theater several times, but I was also sobbing by the end. It’s wholly original and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it. What this movie has to say about us, about our constant need to explore the possibilities of “what if”, our constant battle between cynicism and optimism are things I’m still trying to parse through today.

What I do know is this: if nothing matters, then we have to give power to the things in life we want to matter. These last almost three years have been brutal and some days it doesn’t feel like it’s getting any better. This movie is a reminder that kindness is not weakness and that we have power over the things we give energy to. Even the worst versions of ourselves can matter.

I can’t remember the last time I got this excited about a film, honestly. It might’ve been back in 2018 when I watched Call Me By Your Name, which is a fact that has aged like milk. But like CMBYN, this film got under my skin. It was so visceral.

If you’re able to, please see this movie on the big screen and don’t read more plot points. Let this film be a journey, because I can almost guarantee it’s unlike any journey you’ve ever been on.

Also: movies are back baby!!!!!