Film / Everything Everywhere All at Once

"The universe is so much bigger than you realize."^note From bottom to top L-R: Joy, Evelyn, Deirdre, Waymond, Jobu Tupaki, Gong Gong, and Evelyn holding a googly eye

"My dear Evelyn, I know you. With every passing moment, you fear you might have missed your chance to make something of your life. I'm here to tell you every rejection, every disappointment, has led you here to this moment. Don't let anything distract you from it."

— Alpha Waymond to Evelyn Wang

Everything Everywhere All at Once is a 2022 absurdist action sci-fi comedy-drama film written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (aka DANIELS); it is the duo's second feature film after Swiss Army Man. The film stars Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jenny Slate and Harry Shum Jr.

Meet Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), a middle-aged Chinese American laundromat owner trying to survive tax season. One day, in the middle of a meeting about paperwork at the IRS office, she's suddenly whisked away and split between two alternate realities. It turns out that there's something threatening the very fate of what she discovers to be the multiverse, and she may be the only chance of stopping it. Peering into other universes, Evelyn can gain the experiences, memories, and emotions of her alternate selves and use those to her advantage. With her extraordinary new powers, she becomes an incredibly skilled — albeit reluctant — heroine.

The film premiered at the South by Southwest festival on March 11, 2022, followed by a limited release on March 25 and a wide release on April 8 by A24.

The trailer can be viewed here.

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Everything Everywhere All At Once contains examples of:

Tropes A-F

• Abusive Parents:
  • Gong Gong was disappointed that his daughter Evelyn is a girl, abandoned her when she chose Waymond, and continues to criticize and belittle her in the present despite her already breaking her back to take care of him. It's heavily implied Alpha Gong Gong wasn't much different and nagged Evelyn to keep running experiments, which resulted in Jobu Tupaki mass-murdering the multiverse.
  • Evelyn herself of the Protagonist Verse is emotionally distant and verbally abusive to her family, to the point that Joy tells Becky that criticism and insults are her mother's way of showing affection. She gets worse in Return Home verse. Both get better by the end of the film due to their experiences, setting her to Parents as People territory. Evelyn of the Alphaverse was relentless about pushing her daughter to extensively verse-jump, which fractured Alpha Joy's mind and led to her becoming Jobu Tupaki, a nihilistic Death Seeker. It is no surprise that Jobu killed her.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: It's taken to extremes when Evelyn and Jobu jump into a universe where life never evolved on Earth, and they both take the form of rocks. The scene is dead silent, with the dialogue taking the form of written text on screen.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Alpha Waymond beats up a bunch of mooks with a fanny pack, echoing his actor Ke Huy Quan's role in The Goonies: Data, a boy with a gadget belt. It's also worth noting that that character also had the surname "Wang."
  • Evelyn learns kung fu from an Alternate Self who became a celebrity by starring in action films ... just like Michelle Yeoh, her actress. Real-life footage of Yeoh at red carpets is even used to introduce that world.
  • Googly eyes are a recurring visual element in the film. One of James Hong's most memorable roles was as Hannibal Chew, the creator of genetic eyes, in Blade Runner.
  • James Hong also spends most of his screentime in a mechanized wheelchair, much like one of his other iconic roles, David Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China.
  • In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, during a rapid-fire montage of many of Evelyn's alternate selves, one of them is wearing what looks like a classic Star Trek: The Original Series blue uniform. Phillipa Georgiou, anyone?
• Aerith and Bob: You have widely-used names (Evelyn, Chad), less common names that still get some use (Deirdre), and then complete nonsense (Jobu Tupaki). This is lampshaded by Evelyn, who complains that they're just making up words now when she first hears Jobu Tupaki's name.
• Affectionate Parody: Of Wuxia, especially the more cosmic-level stories you'd see in the Spirit Cultivation Genre; the movie revolves around, at its core, a woman finding her path in life and becoming more cosmically aware in a way that allows her to advance her personal life and protect the multiverse ... it just so happens that this woman is a middle-aged laundromat owner, this version of the multiverse includes a world where humans have floppy hot dog-like fingers, and a symbol of enlightenment is googly eyes.
• Age-Appropriate Angst: Mother-daughter conflict writ large, as Joy (a young twentysomething) is coping with her first serious relationship, a coming-out story, and a strained relationship with her mother. Evelyn's angst, however, is that of a middle-aged woman, pigeonholed into taking care of her aging father, and afraid that she's wasted her life.
• Almost Kiss: As Alphaverse Waymond is found by Jobu Tupaki in his universe, he uses the last of his consciousness in prime-universe Waymond to lean in to kiss Evelyn one last time, but dies before he can do so.
• Alternate Personality Punishment: Jobu Tupaki hates and attacks Evelyn because of how an alternate universe version of Evelyn pressured Jobu, her daughter, into traveling between universes so often it broke her mind into becoming a Straw Nihilist experiencing every universe at once.
• Alternate Species Counterpart: Some of the alternate versions of Evelyn fall under this trope, such as Evelyn the doodle, Evelyn the pinata, Evelyn the pigeon, and Evelyn the rock.
• Alternate Tooniverse: At least one universe is an anime, and during one of the fight sequences, the action unexpectedly turns into doodles that go completely surreal.
• Alternate Universe: It's the standard multiverse setup where every decision and possibility creates a new branch, though individuals cannot physically travel to other ones. Verse-hoppers can instead access all of the skills possessed by any of their alternate selves in other universes.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese version uses Kami Hirose's "Premium World" as the theme song, fitting for the chaotic nature of the movie.
• Ambiguous Ending: It isn't clear if the final scenes take place in "our" Evelyn's universe (where the IRS office got torn to pieces) or the universe where they went home, had the party that Evelyn had a breakdown at, and were given a week to get their statements together. If the latter, it's unknown what happened to the former universe after Joy decides not to enter the black hole.
• An Aesop:
  • The world may vastly dwarf the people living in it, and it can be easy to be overwhelmed by our problems, but our connections with others make life worth living.
  • The question of whether or not life has any inherent meaning is ultimately irrelevant. Besides, if nothing matters, then the only thing that does matter is what we do.
• And I Must Scream: Part of what the Bagel does to people, opening their minds to everything, everywhere, all at once. When you're experiencing everything, you can't experience anything.
• And Starring: The trailer lists the cast "with James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis."
• Answer Cut:
  • An incredulous Alphaverse observer wonders what path evolution could've followed to result in humans with hotdog fingers. Cut to a scene thousands of years ago in a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, complete with an off-key rendition of "Also sprach Zarathustra", where a proto-human with hotdog fingers kills a regular-fingered proto-human and whoops in triumph.
  • Alphaverse Waymond reports that, according to his readings, Jobu Tupaki isn't inhabiting Joy anymore. His handler in the Alphaverse then asks, if Jobu Tupaki isn't in the Protagonist Verse anymore, then where is she? The camera then turns, revealing her to be right in front of their truck in the Alphaverse.
• Arc Symbol:
  • A heavy black circle with a hole in the middle. It first appears in the laundromat at the start, as Joy focuses on a washer filled entirely with black clothes, and comes up again later when Deirdre draws a heavy circle in pen around a receipt for a karaoke machine that Evelyn wrote off as a business expense. It later factors heavily into anything connected to Jobu Tupaki. Her "minions" all wear the symbol on their foreheads in some way. It turns out to symbolize the artifact Jobu Tupaki created: a truly "Everything" Bagel.
  • The Googly Eyes, which Waymond puts on things sometimes, and which become a symbol of his outlook of trying to find joy and happiness in little things. It also forms the yang to the Everything Bagel's yin; the Everything Bagel is a black circle, with a white center, while the Googly Eye is a white circle with a black center, symbolizing how Waymond's anti-nihilism counters Jobu Tupaki's nihilism.
• Artifact of Doom: The truly "Everything" Bagel, a quantum singularity that Jobu Tupaki created by putting literally everything, including contradictory abstract concepts, on a bagel (apparently because she was bored). The resulting paradoxical anomaly is described as being like a black hole capable of wiping out all of creation, and anyone who stares into it becomes mentally displaced across the multiverse, driving them as mad with existential despair as her.
• Artistic License – Law: A minor example, but the movie seems to imply that the IRS will at least consider all of Evelyn's business expenses if she files the appropriate paperwork. The Internal Revenue Code features a so-called "Hobby-loss Rule" specifically intended to prevent this kind of thing. That said, the Rule generally requires a business to be unprofitable for three of the past five years for expenses to be disallowed, so if they were feeling VERY generous they might have allowed Evelyn to get away with it once to avoid complete financial ruin. Especially if, as is implied, Evelyn wasn't trying to intentionally defraud the IRS and simply misunderstood Deirdre's instructions.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence:
  • An interesting variant with Jobu Tupaki. Due to being split across reality, Jobu Tupaki exists everywhere, all at once. This gives her godlike capabilities alongside Reality Warping powers, essentially turning her into a Physical God. However, she is still human, and her current breakdown is motivated by the very human emotions of betrayal and self-hatred caused by the Alphaverse version of Evelyn. Also, she's constantly experiencing snippets of various lives, unable to have one of her own, or truly experiencing any of them for any period of time.
  • Midway into the film, Evelyn gets her consciousness split across timelines the same as Jobu Tupaki. However, she goes through an extended I Am What I Am realization through understanding her husband and daughter and vows to be better. This allows her to draw from her alternate lifepaths without needing to do something random, turning her into a true Master of All and letting her fight Jobu Tupaki on even ground. Except she chooses not to fight, but to drag Jobu and her minions out of their Despair Event Horizon by reminding them of all the good that exists in the universe.
• Asian Cleaver Fever: The universe where Evelyn is a teppanyaki chef features plenty of fancy knife work. It's justified, since the theatricality of the restaurant seems to be a selling point (Evelyn's boss criticizes her for not showing off as much as another chef, and Benihana, the most familiar teppanyaki restaurant for Americans, is as much a culinary trick show as a restaurant), and those knife skills certainly come in handy during fight scenes.
• Asian Rudeness: Zigzagged. Evelyn is a very grumpy, disgruntled person to her family and customers. This mostly comes from her ongoing existential crisis and dissatisfaction with her own life choices. Over the film as she confronts her relationship with the world, she softens to those around her. Her father Gong Gong is also generally a mean bastard. But even he is surprisingly accepting of his granddaughter's sexuality. Completely averted with Waymond, Evelyn's All-Loving Hero husband.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: The creators gave each Universe its own visual language by playing with lenses and aspect ratios. In the normal verse they used a 1.85:1 ratio. However should they move into an action sequence they would change to a wider 2.39:1 ratio. Flashback scenes were in the 4:3 ratio to give the feel of old VHS camera footage.
• Ass Shove: Two Alpha Jumpers do this with butt plug-shaped trophies to gain fighting abilities. One of them does so by jumping onto it, butt first, presumably with no lube. Note: do not try this at home.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • After finding out Jobu Tupaki is the Alpha Universe version of Joy, Evelyn tapes her version of Joy to a chair. A bit later, Alpha Gong Gong tells Evelyn killing 'her' Joy will give Jobu one less vessel to pilot, and he gives Evelyn a box cutter. Evelyn walks slowly toward Joy, with Joy nervously asking Evelyn what she's doing. Evelyn raises the blade ... and cuts through the tape. Waymond hilariously complains that he was almost done unwrapping it.
  • Evelyn trying to explain what's going on to her family by referencing a movie also has shades of this. Up until that point, the story has contained numerous references to The Matrix, with Evelyn even being called The One and receiving kung-fu powers; the particular danger they're facing at this moment is an enemy who can leap into Joy's body at any time, much like the agents in The Matrix. So, of course Evelyn says that it's just like in that film, you know the one, and takes several moments to finally land on ... Ratatouille. Which has basically nothing whatsoever to do with anything that happened so far, and which, on top of this, she misremembers as Raccacoonie.
• Barbershop Quartets Are Funny: A Chinese Barbershop Trio shows up in front of Evelyn at the start of the second act. Waymond interrupts them before they can even start their song.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: The furious Deirdre busts through the locked janitor's closet with her two arms and gives Alpha Waymond a Neck Snap.
• Bathos: The movie frequently pairs serious, emotionally resonant moments with utterly absurd situations and visuals. For instance, a serious relationship drama plays out between two women with hot dogs for fingers, and the symbol of nihilism and despair is, quite literally, an everything bagel.
• Batter Up!: When Deirdre comes to her shop with police enforcement, Eveylin grabs a baseball bat, destroys one of the front windows with it and then starts demolishing the inventory.
• Berate and Switch: Near the end, Evelyn admits that Joy is getting fat, got tattoos despite how her mother hates them, and hasn't made anything of herself. But even though she can literally go anywhere and do anything else, there's nowhere Evelyn wants to be than right here with her daughter.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just before Evelyn is warped into Jobu's Everything Bagel, she gets saved in the last minute by Alpha Gong Gong.
• Black Eyes of Evil: This is used extensively to portray the corrupting power of the Bagel and the subsequent nihilism it brings.
• Blipvert: There is a 30-second high-speed montage of frames from all over The Multiverse as Evelyn gains access to all her alternate universe selves.
• A Bloody Mess: During her first fight scene, Jobu Tupaki gets shot, but thanks to her Reality Warper abilities, she makes it into ketchup.
• Bolivian Army Ending: The last we see of the Raccacoonie universe, Evelyn throws Chad at the animal control truck taking Raccacoonie away, with no resolution as to whether or not they succeed in freeing him.
• Brand X: The organic ketchup bottle that Jobu Tupaki brandishes is a Trader Joe's bottle with the brand name very slightly altered.
• Brick Joke:
  • One of the more obvious ones is when Evelyn tries to describe the film Ratatouille but keeps calling it "Raccacoonie" and describes the titular animal as a raccoon, sparking rancorous laughter from her husband and daughter. While the audience might initially assume that Evelyn is simply struggling with the English language in that moment, it is later revealed that in an alternate reality, Evelyn witnessed a co-worker chef being controlled by a raccoon in a similar way as seen in Ratatouille. Thus the issue wasn't that Evelyn's English skills were limited to the extent she could not identify mammals correctly, but that she might have limited knowledge of Disney movies and have actually SEEN the controlling happen.
  • Evelyn says to Joy at the beginning, to deflect from actually being there for her daughter, "you need to eat healthier; you are getting fat." Joy leaves. A whole 45 minutes further into the film, and what's the first thing Jobu Topaki says to Evelyn when they're in the same room for the first time since then? "Don't worry, Evelyn! It's organic!"
  • At the start of the movie, Joy explains to Becky that nagging Joy about her appearance is Evelyn's way of showing she cares. In the last scene, Evelyn tells Becky that she thinks Becky needs to grow out her undercut.
• Building of Adventure: Most of the action takes place at different levels of IRS building.
• Bullet Dodges You: In an homage to The Matrix, Evelyn develops the power to make the bullets stop that are fired at her. She then turns the bullets into googly eyes and returns them to the senders.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: In some alternate universes, Joy calls Evelyn by her first name - this is very rude in Asian households, and a signifier of her antagonistic relationship with her mother.
• Calling the Old Man Out: In one universe, Evelyn confronts her father about his past and present treatment of her and asks how he could've so readily abandoned her all those years ago for marrying Waymond.
• Casting Gag: Randy Newman, the composer behind several of Pixar's films, makes an uncredited vocal cameo as Chad's raccoon from the universe parodying the Pixar film Ratatouille.
• Cerebus Syndrome: "Part 1: Everything" is pretty manic and wacky, as indicated by the title card being accompanied by an overdramatic orchestral sting. "Part 2: Everywhere" is much more melancholic and introspective, beginning to more directly deal with the movie's themes on nihilism and existentialism, and the title card this time around is accompanied by a somber piano piece.
• Chain of People: During the third act, Evelyn tries to pull Jobu Tupaki away from the Everything Bagel black hole, and they're soon joined by Waymond and Gong Gong, forming a chain to save her from the Bagel.
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • The hotdog universe seems like nothing but a joke until the climax reveals that in a world without dexterous hands, Evelyn is highly skilled with her feet.
  • The hibachi chef universe also has one beyond Evelyn's skills with a knife, as her piloting Chad like Raccacoonie did is repeated with "our" universe's Chad.
  • Googly eyes. They're initially shown in the first scene as evidence of Waymond's Bumbling Dad personality when he sticks it on everything, and Evelyn's more serious personality when she takes them down, but they then become:
    • Evelyn's third eye when she reaches 'enlightenment' (aka mastery of multiverse hopping).
    • Waymond's ability to find joy in the small things, which becomes key to saving the multiverse from Jobu Tupaki.
    • The anti-Everything Bagel, because of its inverted color scheme (black in white to the Bagel's white in black). Evelyn is only able to fight against the Bagel once she fully embraces the silly joy the Eyes give.
    • A way for a rock-Evelyn to show she assigns value to her perception, creates meaning for her experience and, as a result, cares.
    • And finally, symbolism for Evelyn's Character Development, when big googly eyes start appearing in the apartment at the end of the film.
• Chekhov's Gun: Those interestingly-shaped awards on Deirdre's desk? They aren't there just for a one-off gag; they're the, er, catalyst for two mooks to temporarily become expert martial artists.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Various figures, such as Debbie the Dog Mom, appear in one universe before becoming significant in another.
• Childhood Friend Romance: As Evelyn's life path is scanned, we hear adult Waymond saying, "Come with me" a second before we see Evelyn as a child drawing a picture of someone with hearts on it and getting complimented for it by a boy sitting in front of her. When it cuts back, Waymond is convincing Evelyn to move to America, heavily implying that the boy is Waymond.
• Chinese Launderer: The Wang family is in the laundry business, a stereotypical occupation for Asian immigrants in America.
• Close-Enough Timeline: It's implied at the end that Evelyn has settled into one of the nearly identical timelines to the one the movie has started in, as her original universe has been radically altered through the events of the movie. An outright war happening in the IRS building and with her and Waymond labeled as terrorists on TV, this "mundane" universe is likely the same one used to depict the party at the laundromat. While content, the movie ends hinting that she is still conscious of other timelines in the back of her mind.
• Close on Title: The first time we see the movie title is when it appears before the end credits.
• Color-Coded Speech: During the scene in one universe's Earth where Jobu Tupaki and Evelyn are rocks, the dialogue text for the two is white and black, respectively, so viewers can follow who's talking.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: After Alphaverse Waymond beats up the IRS security guards, he tells Evelyn to come with him, or lie there and face the consequences. She immediately chooses to lie on the floor.
• Coming of Age Story: The entire central conflict is built and then resolved by Jobu Tupaki and Joy getting over the fact they are entering adulthood and life sucks ... but that's not a reason to commit suicide.
• Commonality Connection: In one universe, Deirdre extends a final chance to Evelyn because Waymond tells her about their upcoming divorce, and Deirdre knows the stress that comes with that due to being divorced herself.
• Coordinated Clothes: In flashbacks to Waymond proposing to Evelyn, Waymond is wearing a sweater with wide light-blue-and-white stripes and Evelyn is wearing a sweater with wide pink-and-white stripes.
• Cosmic Horror Story: Discussed in-universe and played with in general. When her mind splinters into experiencing the entire multiverse all at once, Jobu Tupaki comes to the conclusion that it's first and foremost scary simply for being the first human being to go through something like that, and a big part of her supposed evil comes from the nihilism this has caused. The Bagel itself is virtually unknowable but looks incredibly unpleasant to experience first-hand. Also, when Evelyn confronts Jobu for the first time, accusing her of being the reason Joy is gay, Jobu responds that the universe is so much bigger than Evelyn realizes, highlighting Joy's sexuality is one small insignificant detail in a much bigger, frightening grand picture, and proceeds to prove her point by turning the flickering lights of the hallway off as the horrific sounds of other terrifying dimensions we never get to see permeate the darkness.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Explicitly invoked by Alpha Waymond just before he dies(?).
• Create Your Own Villain: Alpha Gong Gong reveals that it was Evelyn in the Alphaverse who created Jobu Tupaki by pushing her daughter too far until she broke her.
• Creator Cameo: Co-director Daniel Scheinert has a cameo as an IRS district manager. Co-director Daniel Kwan has two cameos, one as Evelyn's mugger in the Martial Artist Universe and one as a man who gets sucked into the Everything Bagel when Jobu Tupaki activates it in the IRS office during the climax.
• Cure Your Gays: Defied and parodied. Evelyn seems to think that Joy being lesbian is a result of her being possessed by Jobu Tupaki, which an exasperated Jobu disputes. Obviously, when Jobu is defeated, Joy remains lesbian.
• Cynicism Catalyst: The "overload" responsible for creating Jobu Tupaki, making her incredibly nihilistic and ultimately a Death Seeker. Evelyn herself, once exposed to the Bagel, goes completely overboard with being cynical, manipulative, and pointlessly cruel, in every universe.
• Dare to Be Badass: Every version of Waymond gives some version of this to Evelyn. Alphaverse Waymond tells her her lifetime of failure is precisely what makes her so powerful, Protagonist Waymond tells her that her compassion for Joy is precisely what will win any fight, Movieverse Waymond tells her that optimism is necessary to survive in a harsh world while she's in the throes of nihilistic depression, and even Return Home Waymond gets her to talk to Deirdre and befriend her.
• Decoy Protagonist: Alpha Waymond is initially presented as a typical action hero, the one who charges in to kick ass, save the day, and give the protagonist their mission. However, he quickly gives up on Evelyn and leaves her to die. While he later comes back for Evelyn, he is eventually killed off midway through the film. The truly heroic Waymond is the protagonist one, written by the Daniels to be a "beta male," but whose love and compassion encompasses everyone, who never abandons Evelyn, and who inspires her to "learn to fight like you" and show everyone their best selves.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Played for Laughs on multiple occasions.
  • When Evelyn is born, the doctor tells her father, "I'm sorry, it's a girl," much to his dismay.
  • Evelyn claims she can get over the fact that her daughter is a lesbian and dating a girl ... but not the fact that she's dating a white girl.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Many critics have pointed out that the "hot dog fingers" universe subplot can be interpreted as a metaphor for homosexual relationships viewed from the perspective of a homophobe. Evelyn, a fairly close-minded person, is continuously horrified of the hot dog finger universe because of the unique nature of their courtship rituals. She views it as unnatural or disgusting, even though she's married to Deirdre in this universe and the two of them seem really happy together. Over the course of the movie, Evelyn comes to realize that the hot dog universe isn't bad at all, and that even though it seems gross on the surface, they're very similar to the mainline universe. They even have a Chekhov's Skill she borrows from them in the climax: being incredibly skilled with their toes.
• Downer Ending: In-Universe. The second act ends with Evelyn's mind overloading, causing her to have a fatal seizure as Waymond desperately shouts for help. The film then fades out, and begins displaying credits... which are then revealed to belong to a film inside the universe where Evelyn is a movie star. As the audience begins to applaud, the Waymond of that reality comments that the ending was bold but quite sad. That said, it's implied that that was the fate of that universe, as the third act follows other timelines where Deirdre wasn't punched in the face.
• Dramatic Spine Injury: Jobu Tupaki's primary henchwoman is Deidre, and her first action scene climaxes with her gaining pro-wrestling skills via Verse-Jumping. She climatically plans on taking Alpha-Waymond out of the fight via lifting him up into a dramatic slow-motion backbreaker, which he manages to defend by grabbing an exit sign and using it to shield his back, hurting her knee and saving his spine, ending the skirmish in the process.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • It's revealed that Jobu Tupaki created the Everything Bagel not to destroy everything but to kill herself, since she believes that because there are countless universes of chaos and she's Seen It All, nothing in life really matters. She nearly succeeds, but Evelyn is able to pull her out of that mindset and out of the Bagel.
  • One of the Evelyns (namely, a rock) decides to throw herself off a cliff, both so she doesn't have to listen to Jobu and giving in to her ideals of nihilism.
• Droste Image: When Evelyn opens the picture book Everything Everywhere All at Once, the page she opens it to has an illustration of Evelyn reading a copy of Everything Everywhere All at Once.
• Dysfunctional Family: The Wangs. Evelyn is highly stressed, dismissive of her husband, and insensitive towards her daughter. Waymond is a Stepford Smiler doing his best to hold his family together. Joy is dealing with gayngst and the realization of how much growing up sucks. It gets better.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Evelyn goes through arguably the worst day of her life, is shot at, struck, cut, harassed, and driven to the absolute limits of what her brain can handle ... and walks away from it having repaired her relationships with her daughter, husband, and father. The film ends with Evelyn at peace for the first time in the entire film, and as she zones out, she begins hearing the whispers of alternate realities ...
• Eldritch Abomination: The bagel. Being exposed to it opens you up to the entire, stupid multiverse, causing existential despair at the pointlessness of it all. It takes Waymond's constant and unending hope and love to snap Evelyn out of it, to find hope and love, and fully unlock her potential.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: The elder Wangs struggle in English, but are of course fully fluent in Chinese. Joy, having been born in America, is similarly fluent in English but Gong Gong says her Chinese gets worse every time they speak.
• Enemy Mine: Alpha Gong Gong and Jobu Tupaki briefly join forces in the climax. The former wants the latter dead and the latter wants to kill herself, so their goals are technically aligned, but Evelyn wants to save her, which neither can accept.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Evelyn insists that the movie where the cook gets controlled by an animal is Raccaccoonie, and it's a raccoon, not a rat.
• Establishing Character Moment: The very first scene, where Evelyn is trying to balance cooking food for her father and sorting out their business receipts while Waymond tries to get a word in, establishes Evelyn and Waymond's dynamic — she's a frazzled business owner and dismissive wife, he's a loving but put-upon husband.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: It seems everyone has access to an alternate who excels at kung fu. Otherwise, this is averted; the Wangs are just ordinary people who own a laundromat and don't know kung fu.
• Existential Horror: Jobu is driven to nihilism by her total awareness of her alternate lives. As she sees it, humans are mad and confused in their complex lives, and it's made worse by every scientific discovery of the sheer scope of existence that proves they're all pettier and smaller still.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: Played with; Evelyn asks why they can't just let a few alternate universes be lost to Jobu Tupaki. Alpha Waymond tells her that Jobu Tupaki is planning something much worse that could threaten the entire multiverse. Played straight when he asks Evelyn to think strongly about going into the janitor's closet after exiting the elevator to deliberately create an alternate universe where she did so they have somewhere to talk after initiating her into verse jumping. This reality acts as a decoy to Jobu Tupaki and her forces to buy themselves time before Evelyn has to confront her.
• Extinct in the Future: More like "Extinct In A Futuristic Alternate Universe," but close enough. Alpha Waymond is overjoyed to taste cream cheese and half-and-half milk in "our" Evelyn's universe because his world lost all cows to the war against Jobu Tupaki.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The movie starts up in the mid-morning, and wraps up the plot that evening. There's multiverse jumping, but the main plot runs in that timeframe.
• Eye Scream:
  • The version of Evelyn who's a successful singer is blind as the result of falling on upright sticks as a child.
  • When Evelyn realizes she needs to become a Reality Warper like Jobu Topaki to beat her, one of the random things Evelyn does to 'verse jump is squirt some sanitizer from Waymond's fanny pack into her hands and then press the heels of her hands into her eyes.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: As we are introduced to more and more alternate universes, we start to see how drastically different those timelines become, including showing worlds where life evolved very differently and the laws of physics are very different. Naturally, this means there are universes where the supernatural, magic and sci-fi exist. As we see various versions of Evelyn having existential crises in alternate timelines, we see brief flashes of an alien Evelyn standing in front of floating pyramids, an ogre-like Evelyn in a desert-looking world, an anime Evelyn in a futuristic city, an Evelyn with entirely black eyes crying black tears in a starless void, a pale Edwardian Evelyn that looks like she was crafted from marble, a version of Evelyn wearing a gas mask in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a talking raccoon who helps a man learn how to cook, a universe that looks like a children's drawing, a universe where everyone has hot dogs for fingers that ejaculate ketchup and mustard in each others' mouths, and so so so much more. That's not even getting into the fact that Jobu Tupaki is essentially a living goddess who exists across all of space and time and can make whatever she so much as thinks about into something tangible, able to manipulate atoms and matter into whatever she wants on a whim. The implications of this are both hilarious and frightening.
  Kung Fu Evelyn: I can think of any nonsense I want, and somewhere out there, it exists. It's real.
• Feet-First Introduction: The first shot of Jobu Tupaki is of her black-clad feet stepping into a hallway of terrified office employees and then twisting one ankle as she moves forward in an uneven, jerky manner. A deleted scene reveals this to be due to her Body Surf abilities making it difficult for her to grasp what body she's in, causing her to lose her balance as she tries to adjust to switching between universes.
• Finger Poke of Doom: Evelyn uses a pinky fighting style from one of her alternate counterparts that leads to people being Punched Across the Room.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The Pre-Ending Credits lasts just long enough to fool some people, but those who notice that Evelyn is credited as a producer will realize the movie isn't over yet.
• Flashback Cut: After Evelyn is fitted with the verse jumping ear pieces, she experiences a series of these when one of her alternate selves dies: she sees her birth, being chastised as a little girl by her father for running, meeting Waymond in school, accepting his proposal, being disowned by her parents, having sex for the first time, being in labor with Joy, and several other points in her life.
• Flash Sideways: Alpha Evelyn invented "verse jumping," the capability to temporarily visit your Alternate Self and obtain all their skills and memories. The characters we see in the film use verse jumping to obtain various abilities that help them in the heat of the moment.
• Flatline: When Evelyn dies in the second act, her mobile device gives off a flatline sound.
• Forced Transformation: Jumping to another universe means you become your counterpart there, regardless of species. These include inanimate objects like rocks and piñatas.
• Foreshadowing: Frequently overlaps with Brick Joke.
  • The very first scene of the film is a shot of the bookshelf in the Wangs' living room, which features a raccoon doll, a sketch of a black circle on a paper, and googly eyes. All of these foreshadow later plot developments in the film: the raccoon hints at Raccaccoonie, the black circle is an obvious representation of the Everything Bagel, and the googly eyes represent the idealistic counterpart of the Everything Bagel.
  • Very early on in the film, after having Waymond bring the clothes down from the apartment, she remarks to Joy, "I don't know how your father would've survived without me." In another universe, we see exactly what happens to Waymond without Evelyn in Alphaverse and Movieverse. He can survive without her, but he prefers to survive with her.
  • On the way to the IRS building, we see a man twirling a pizza sign. In another universe, Evelyn works as a sign twirler, and uses that skill with a riot shield to defend Waymond and Joy.
  • Alpha Waymond and Evelyn hide in a meeting room where the camera noticeably lingers on an everything bagel. Everything bagels become a very important plot point.
  • Jobu Tupaki's followers are shown with a black circle drawn on their foreheads. It symbolizes the Everything Bagel that she created, the product of her broken sanity that can destroy the multiverse.
  • Deirdre hints at a soft spot for Evelyn early on, commenting that it's unlike her to give Evelyn a final chance. One of the improbable things Evelyn has to do to get access to a variant's abilities is to proclaim her love for Deirdre and mean it. In the universe where everyone has hot dogs for fingers, Evelyn and Deirdre are shown to be married.
  • It's easy to miss, but when Evelyn is first trying to shift between the burner universe in the janitor's closet and her audit, Deirdre complains, "It's like talking to my ex-husband." Deirdre being divorced leads to her empathizing with Evelyn and granting the Wangs one more chance at the end of the movie.
  • Early on in the film, Evelyn and Waymond have a One Dialogue, Two Conversations exchange about their divorce proceedings — Evelyn is talking to Waymond assuming he's his Alphaverse counterpart, while Waymond is assuming all the hurtful things his wife is saying about him are in the context of the divorce papers. The climax of the film is Evelyn taking this trope to its natural conclusion and having conversations with several versions of Jobu Tupaki and her husband about different topics at the same time, ultimately resolving all of her lingering feelings towards them through their multiple different lives.
  • As Evelyn watched the Bollywood movie play out in the laundromat at the start of the movie, Waymond in the background mentions that one of their customers he was chatting to wants to be an actor, "just like you." Later in the movie, we jump to a verse where Evelyn does become a famous actress.
  • Alpha Waymond explains the mind is like a clay pot holding water; every jump opens a crack that needs to be resealed, or the mind can shatter, as happened to Jobu Tupaki. Evelyn deliberately cracks herself in the same way, becoming her equal.
  • When Chad is first introduced in his life as a teppanyaki grill chef, we can see a raccoon tail coming out from the base of his hat. Also, Evelyn's insistence that Ratatouille is called "Raccacoonie" also builds up to this universe.
  • Evelyn turns out to have marked down the purchase of a karaoke machine as a business expense, and Waymond tries to get her out of trouble by mentioning that she's a great singer. One of the universes shown and used later is one where Evelyn is a blind opera singer.
• For Want Of A Nail: It's shown how a few of Evelyn's alternate universe selves developed because of a different choice Evelyn made in the past.
  • In the universe where Evelyn is a martial arts star, she turned down Waymond's proposal, and he left for America without her. While walking home alone, Evelyn got mugged, but her attackers were stopped by a sifu who then offered to train Evelyn herself.
  • The universe where Evelyn is a famous singer is one where she tripped while playing one day, causing her to be blinded when she fell on a board with two nails sticking out.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • When Evelyn gains access to all her alternate universe selves, there's a shot of numerous images of her alternate selves cycling through view, including ones that are a tree, a dog, a zombie, a bunch of grapes, an easter egg, a YouTube thumbnail, a meme about tennis, a nun with a skull for a face, a baby and a green alien.
  • One of the fighters Evelyn faces near the end of the movie is her martial arts sifu from the movie star universe. While not shown fighting, she can be seen happily eating a cookie on the stairs near another fighter.

Tropes G-L

• Gag Penis: Via her Reality Warping powers, Jobu Tupaki turns the attacking security guard's baton into a wobbly supersized dildo.
• The Generation Gap: A major theme of the film. Three generations of Chinese immigrants (Evelyn's father as a non-immigrant, Evelyn as a first-generation immigrant, and Evelyn's daughter as a second-generation immigrant) seemingly cannot understand each other. Evelyn believes her own history with her father makes him too old-fashioned to understand her daughter, unaware of the irony of her own difficulties understanding her daughter. Fortunately, they learn to communicate and bridge the gap by the end.
• Genre Mashup: The movie really lives up to its title's promise of everything.
  • It's an absurdist Black Comedy, a heartfelt Dysfunctional Family drama, a sci-fi adventure, a cosmic horror movie, an Affectionate Parody of martial art films, a surreal Mind Screw experiment, a poignant arthouse thriller, and a fun popcorn movie all at the same time.
  • The film has been more succinctly summarized as a Science Fiction story about a potential multiversal war while at its core being a Family Drama about a mother trying to manage a struggling business, a failing marriage, and tense relationships with her father and daughter. And there is a strong comedic overtone, mostly of the surreal kind — the "jump to an Alternate Self" mechanic requires a character doing something that would be completely unexpected if not senseless for them.
  • The various alternate universes provide extra genre toppings. Waymond can defeat a group of guards with nothing but a fanny pack as in comic martial arts films, many of the fights pull on wuxia and kung-fu films, while a whole universe is a straight-up homage to the animated comedy Ratatouille.
• Genre Shift: The Movie Star universe initially appears to be a goofy sendup to Wuxia movies complete with unique color grading and Ice-Cream Koan teachings from Evelyn's sifu. As soon as Evelyn sees CEO Waymond, the tone of this universe shifts to a romantic drama as directed by Wong Kar-wai. You'll be forgiven if you forget that this is the universe Evelyn took her martial arts skills from by the end of the movie.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Alpha Waymond slaps Evelyn in the face to get her out of her delusional yearning for the just experienced life as a movie star.
• Girl Next Door Turned Superstar: In the movie star universe where Evelyn doesn't leave with Waymond, she learns kung fu and becomes an A-lister film star.
• The Glasses Come Off: Alpha Waymond carefully removes his glasses before engaging the IRS security in a fanny pack fight.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: With her consciousness spread thin across the multiverse and experiencing all of existence simultaneously, Jobu has become a Straw Nihilist who has given up on finding any point in the universe. Her goal is to make Evelyn understand this too so that she doesn't have to be alone in this mindset, and it's implied that she broke and converted her cultists this way.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Alphaverse Evelyn hoped to exploit her Joy's high aptitude for Verse-Jumping by pushing her beyond her limits. She succeeded, but the mental strain of experiencing every alternate reality at the same time drove her insane and filled with a desire to corrupt Evelyn's mind the same way.
  • Jobu Tupaki's plan for Evelyn is to get Evelyn to peer into the Everything Bagel to get her to the same nihilistic mindset as she does. Evelyn's plan to save her daughter from just after the one-third mark — once she understands who Jobu is — is to do this, only with Waymond at her side convincing her to remain kind through it all. This creates an Evelyn who understands Jobu's mindset like Jobu wanted, but sees the good enough to counter every nihilistic point Jobu Tupaki offers with an equally anti-nihilistic point.
• Good-Times Montage: As Evelyn gets her hope restored by Waymond, she smiles at him and reminisces about all the times Waymond found joy in the smallest of things, like finding a remote, laughing at a movie, dancing in the living room or ringing a bell.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Evelyn and Jobu Tupaki duke it out over several universes, one of which has them as piñatas. One of them gets cut at the waist, but being a piñata, she doesn't seem that affected.
• Handy Feet: In the universe where everyone has hot dogs for fingers, people have made up for having such ungainly hands by becoming very dexterous with their feet. Glimpses of this universe show Evelyn and Deirdre doing things such as using a cellphone, knitting and playing piano this way.
• Happy Fun Ball: Jobu Tupaki's multiverse-ending project is ... a bagel. Or as she explains, an Everything Bagel.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: In-Universe, when they don't have time to calculate what is necessary to get Evelyn the skills she needs, Alpha Waymond tells her to just "do something weird. Peeing your pants usually works." She then starts doing random things, getting the skills and information she needs for her fight. They're quite random, but she usually ends up with something appropriate to the situation.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: The fact that Waymond is an All-Loving Hero is what snaps Evelyn out of her Heroic BSoD. It inspires her to "fight like [him]," to find the love and joy in everyone.
  Waymond: Please! Be kind!
• Heroic BSoD: Evelyn briefly suffers a nihilistic crisis on seeing the bagel and experiencing every version of her life in the infinite multiverse.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: A universe version. Although we are not made privy to every different version of Jobu Tupaki throughout the Multiverse, her ability to warp reality around her allows her to pull the clothing and fighting styles of various versions of herself from other realities into whatever universe she is currently in. Thus, we are treated to allusions to other worlds we don't get to see directly but know exist. When confronted by a group of police officers in the IRS building, she dispatches them by transforming into a version of herself from a reality where she has two heads, a reality where she is a Salsa dancer, a reality where she's a Mexican luchador, a reality where everything becomes a commercial, a reality where she is a golfer, and a reality where everything sounds like a cartoon.
• Hidden Depths: A major theme of the movie. Nearly every character is much more than they appear on the surface, on account of the multiverse being a literal representation of their untapped potential.
• Hilarious Outtakes: The home media releases come with over eight minutes' worth of these, which prints from the July 2022 theatrical re-release play after the end credits.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: At one point during their confrontation, Jobu Tupaki asks Evelyn to punch her in the face. Evelyn complies but ends up hitting Jobu Tupaki with her right and herself with her left. It was Jobu Tupaki's way of demonstrating that they are both the same.
• Homage:
  • The "raccacoonie" universe where Chad is controlled by a raccoon who helps him cook is a straightforward one to Ratatouille.
  • The universe where Evelyn is a famous actress is a twofer:
    • The Training Montage where she becomes a master martial artist trained by a mysterious silver-haired mentor (think Pai Mei in Kill Bill) is a homage to the kung-fu films of the '70s and '80s.
    • The rest of this 'verse is an homage to Wong Kar-wai's movies, with cinematography that makes heavy use of Wong's Signature Style — many slow-mo shots during quick action sequences, frame-within-frame blocking, and lots of negative space. The plot of this world ends with her and Waymond having a deep conversation in an alleyway at night, with the moody lighting, colorful cinematography, and yearning dialogue echoing In the Mood for Love.^note Ke Huy Quan, who plays Waymond in that scene, brought his experience working with Wong on-set, having worked as the assistant director for 2046.
  • At the climax, there is a brief scene of Evelyn and Jobu Tupaki fighting on a subway platform, with the latter trying to push Evelyn into the path of a train and maliciously calling her by her first name (rather than "Mom"). This is pretty overtly modeled on a similar scene in The Matrix.
  • The "hot dog hands universe" is introduced with a flashback to the dawn of man that is a clear spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey's famous opening sequence, complete with a very off-key version of "Also sprach Zarathustra."
  • Alphaverse Waymond fighting off security guards using a fanny pack is a tribute to Jackie Chan fight scenes that make heavy use of improvised weaponry.
• Humans Are Special: As every minute decision or occurrence leads to the creation of an alternate universe, most of them don't have any humans in them at all, as the Earth didn't develop in a way that was conducive to human life there.
• Improbable Weapon User: Pretty much everyone who gets into a fight.
  • Evelyn takes out six enemies with nothing but a riot shield, using the skills she learned from the version of her that worked as a street corner sign twirler.
  • Waymond also takes out security guards with a fanny pack filled with aquarium rocks.
  • Alphaverse Dog Mom fighter uses her own Pomeranian as a flail.
  • Jobu Tupaki beats a security officer unconscious with a pair of comically large dildos.
  • Jobu Tupaki's minions use random office supplies as weapons, such as scissors, a water cooler jug, and the blade from a paper guillotine.
• Infodump: Invoked. Evelyn eventually outright demands to be explained what the hell is happening — no more cryptic references or being dismissed, she wants to know, and she wants to know now.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Alpha Waymond prep-talks Evelyn by noting that she is capable of anything because she is so bad at everything.
  • Evelyn attempts to tell Waymond about the amazing life she had in a universe where she never ran away with him to America, but instead drives him to tears as she gushes about how great her life would have been without him.
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Discussed. Jobu Tupaki, when trying to convert Evelyn, argues that, with each new discovery (up to and including the multiverse), people like her become more and more insignificant.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Most present in the universe where people have hotdogs for fingers. Despite this radical change in the course of human evolution, Evelyn and Deirdre were still born, Claude Debussy was not only born, he still composed "Clair de Lune", pianos were still invented and look the same as in our universe despite being played with the feet, and Evelyn still owns the same laundromat and lives in the same apartment above it.
  • CEO Waymond never married Evelyn and eventually became successful and rich. Despite all this, his continued carrying of a torch for Evelyn made him just as much The Anti-Nihilist as Protagonist and Return Home Waymond, expounding basically the same philosophy as those versions of him.
• Instant Expert: Evelyn barely needs any training to become an expert jumper, able to find the skills and actions she needs even without the Alphaverse computers telling what random action to take.
• Internal Reveal: It's clear to the audience that Jobu Tupaki is Alphaverse-Joy for multiple scenes before Evelyn discovers it.
• Intimidating Revenue Service: The IRS seems intent on shutting down Evelyn's laundromat over numerous violations. They acquiesce once the proper paperwork is procured. Mostly.
• Ironic Echo: The first time she meets Evelyn, Jobu Tupaki insists that "nothing matters" to explain how insignificant they are compared to everything. Near the end of the film, Evelyn repeats the phrase to Joy and Jobu Tupaki to explain why they "do whatever they want," illustrating a duality (or more appropriately, a yin and yang) of nihilism itself.
• Irony: Evelyn has some issues accepting her daughter's sexuality, and her first time at verse jumping is told to profess her genuine love for Deirdre in order to get the right skillset, to which she immediately goes "I can't do that!" Turns out she is married to Deirdre in the hotdog finger universe.
• It Has Been an Honor: Alpha Waymond thanks Evelyn before dying in her arms.
  "I only wish I could be there to see you finish this. I'm grateful that chance was kind enough to let us have these last few moments together."
• It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Someone using the device to teleport their mind to a parallel universe's version of themself requires an action that is otherwise completely nonsensical, making this a rather literal example.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Gong Gong disowned his daughter Evelyn when she eloped with Waymond because Waymond is a "silly boy" and a poor choice for a husband. For Evelyn in the Protagonistverse, he was right, as she ended up in a laundromat with a life going nowhere. Subverted in some of the other universes. In the Alphaverse, for instance, marrying Waymond leads to Evelyn becoming a genius scientist who discovers how to travel to different multiverses. Related to that, in the universe where Evelyn ends up rejecting Waymond's proposal, he somehow becomes the successful and suave CEO of a major corporation.
• Kick the Dog:
  • After Evelyn looks into the Bagel, she's swayed to Jobu Tupaki's nihilistic cause, and versions of Evelyn across the multiverse behave in cynical and cruel ways toward other people. One version of her sells out her husband to the IRS, signs the divorce papers, and breaks the laundromat windows with a bat; the movie star Evelyn coldly tells her Waymond that she would never have a happy life with him; hotdog finger Evelyn breaks up with her partner Deirdre; and the teppanyaki chef Evelyn reveals her rival chef's secret and gets Raccacoonie taken away by animal control.
  • Played literally by Debbie the Dog Mom, who at one point kicks her dog while it's on a leash to make it into an Epic Flail.
• Kryptonite Factor: Jobu Tupaki's sole weakness is having no power over universes where she doesn't exist. The Kung Fu Universe is one where Evelyn and Waymond didn't get married, so Joy was never born. Not only is this the universe where Evelyn gets her most powerful combat abilities, but by talking to CEO Waymond it's also where she gains the insight to reject Jobu's nihilistic worldview.
• Literal Metaphor: When Evelyn jumps to a split universe where she went home with Waymond to finish the paperwork for their taxes, Waymond says that every time he tries talking to Evelyn about their marriage, it's like she gets pulled away. Cue Deirdre reaching in through the car window behind Evelyn and pulling her back to the "main" universe.
• Logical Weakness: Verse jumpers use their earpieces to access the memories and skills of their alternate selves. Multiple times, losing or damaging said earpieces causes them to either lose the skills they were using or prevent them from gaining new ones.
• Lonely at the Top: In one alternate universe, Evelyn is a master martial artist and movie star, and Waymond is a wealthy businessman. Both are lonely despite their success, and they wistfully discuss what they could've been had they stayed together and their lives gone in a more mundane direction.
• Lost in a Crowd: Alpha Waymond escapes with Evelyn from some pursuers by having them pretend to be panicked civilians evacuating the IRS building.

Tropes M-R

• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context:
  • Other than cool visuals, the action switching suddenly to childish doodles and then to Evelyn being a piñata just exploding after being hit makes absolutely zero sense.
  • The hot-dog universe. Just the sheer absurdity of the concept of everything being the same in this world, except for humans somehow having hot-dogs for fingers.
• Malaproper: When Evelyn is attempting to explain the concept of people's bodies being controlled by their alternate selves from the alpha universe, she compares it to the rat puppeteer in Ratatouille, only she misremembers it as Raccacoonie and insists that the animal involved was a raccoon. It turns out to be a real thing in the universe where Evelyn is a chef, as one of her coworkers is being controlled by a raccoon on his head.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Evelyn (who is Chinese) claims that her objection to her daughter Joy's relationship with Becky isn't that it's a lesbian relationship, but that Becky is white.
  Joy: She's half-Mexican ...
• Manchurian Agent: Verse jumping is sometimes played for this. Anyone you meet may have an alternate universe counterpart ready to take over their bodies as the mission demands. As a result, the various mooks Evelyn battles include several minor and background characters among their numbers. This trope is most pronounced when Alpha Gong Gong commands every verse jumper he has in the area to take down Evelyn, causing dozens of random people to "activate" and begin marching towards her location.
• Meaningful Background Event: Alpha Waymond first taking control is seen through the perspective of a CCTV monitor that Evelyn and Joy are distracted from.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Both inverted and played straight with Jobu Tupaki. It was deliberately chosen by the Daniels to be a completely random assemblage of syllables with no meaning, which naturally makes it fit perfectly within the theme of the movie: nothing has any meaning, but you can still find Joy.
  • The official Chinese title shown on screen, 天象行空, is the idiomatic expression "a heavenly steed soaring across the sky", which is considered symbolic of an uncommon, limitless imagination not bound by natural laws.
• Menacing Hand Shot: When Alpha Gong Gong tells Evelyn to kill Joy, Evelyn approaches her daughter with the camera following her and focusing on the box cutter in her right hand.
• Mind Rape: What the Bagel does. This is also what happened to Joy in the Alpha-verse to make her into Jobu Tupaki, and what she wants to do to Evelyn as revenge.
• Missing Time: People who are controlled by verse jumpers have no recollection of what happened or what their bodies have done between getting taken over and regaining control.
• Mission Control: Alpha Waymond's crew enables Evelyn's verse jumps from inside a van. Jobu Tupaki later assaults and kills the operators including Waymond turning the setting into a Missing Mission Control.
• Mondegreen Gag: At the IRS office, Evelyn misheard "gross negligence" as "gross necklaces" and asks Waymond what it means.
• The Multiverse: As Alpha Waymond explains to Evelyn, every choice they make creates an Alternate Self with vastly different life experiences, and these counterparts all exist in parallel. However, the multiverse is threatened by the presence of Jobu Tupaki, and Evelyn is recruited to save it.
• Mundane Luxury: Alpha Waymond is overjoyed to eat a bagel with cream cheese and drink half-and-half creamer straight, as cattle have all gone extinct in his universe.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • The directors have stated that part of their preparation for the movie was watching "competency porn," basically just videos of people doing fairly everyday things but doing them really, really well. They liked the idea of showcasing these skills rather than just having Evelyn, for instance, tap into a CIA agent and turn into a generic super-badass. Half the skills Evelyn uses to fight are weird mundane utilities she gets from perfectly ordinary jobs, like a sign spinner or a hibachi cook.
  • The symbol of nihilism is a bagel, while the googly eyes is its opposite.
  • One can summarize this film as a spat between a mother and daughter with a strained relationship. Quite heartbreaking in paper and throughout the film, it is. But it just so happens that it is fought and eventually resolved by Reality Warper universe-jumping sci-fi shenanigans.
• Mundane Solution: At one point, Evelyn loses her connection to her alternate self during a fight. When she struggles to think of a strange action to do to reconnect, Joy yells at Evelyn to blow on her opponent's nose. It works.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: The first glimpse Evelyn gets into the fantastic nature of the multiverse is when she gets a time-compressed flashback of her whole life while standing in the elevator. It involves her having Morning Sickness when getting pregnant with Joy and Waymond touching her womb afterwards.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Verse jumping opens a person's mind to their alternate lives, so even back in their own bodies experiences can bleed through without training to block it out. If precautions aren't taken, the jumper can be overloaded by the experiences of all their alternates flooding into their brain.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: By the end of the first act, Evelyn thinks she has it all figured out and is ready to face Jobu Tupaki. Instead, her mind quite literally overloads and she gets a fatal seizure, which kills her and causes Pre-Ending Credits. However, this actually turns out to be the beginning of Evelyn gaining control of multiverse jumping equal to Jobu Tupaki.
• New Rules as the Plot Demands: Jumping is supposed to be just your mind, with Alpha Waymond remarking that he is stuck with Protagonist Waymond's strength. However, it can also alter the physical appearance of the person being possessed; it also gives Evelyn immensely muscular fingers when she gets the talents of pinky kung fu. Basically, the movie just runs on Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny, rather than demanding consistency.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Evelyn comforts her daughter by saying that she knows about her depression and wants to help her. Unfortunately, she believes that it's Jobu Tupaki's doing rather than it being her own emotional issues.
• Occidental Otaku: One of the Alphaverse Jumpers (credited as 'Alpha Jumper — Edgelord') appears to be this, even brandishing a katana.
• Oh, Crap!: A lot of people get a lot of them throughout the movie.
  • The first one comes when a security guard is busy worrying about his coworker, only to realize he's within striking distance of Waymond.
  • Evelyn and Waymond get one when Deirdre shows up as one of Jobu's followers and a badass fighter.
  • Everyone who knows who she is gets one whenver Jobu shows up.
  • Gong Gong has a moment when Evelyn decides to break through every universe like Jobu did.
• Once More, with Clarity: When Evelyn first verse jumps to learn Kung-Fu, she remembers being told by her teacher that "even a cookie can be Kung-Fu." Later in the film she jumps through a different version of this universe where her teacher said "even a pinky can be Kung-Fu." This small change gives Evelyn the ability to perform the Pinky Uppercut.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: During the first act, Evelyn and Waymond have a conversation about two different things on the same divorce documents (the proceedings on one side and Alpha Waymond's instructions on the other). Evelyn is speaking angrily to Waymond thinking he's Alpha Waymond, while Waymond believes Evelyn is saying hurtful things to him because of the divorce documents.
• The One That Got Away: In the movie-star universe where Evelyn refuses to leave with Waymond, he sees her as this. When they reunite at Evelyn's movie premiere, and Waymond admits that he would still choose a lesser, more humble with her if he had another life.
• Onscreen Chapter Titles: Each of the three arcs "Everything", "Everywhere" and "All at Once" is announced with an on-screen title.
• Paper Cutting: One of the crazy actions for verse-jumping is giving yourself four paper cuts, one between each finger. Waymond's cuts are accompanied by a "zing" sound.
• People Puppets:
  • How jumping between universes works for the most part: the "outsiders" body-surf into the new verse and take full control of the host, who then has zero recollection of the events during being controlled.
  • Discussed with "Raccacoonie": Evelyn likens the body-surfing to the chef being controlled by a raccoon pulling his hair, like in that movie Ratatouille. The Raccacoonie universe does People Puppets just like in Ratatouille, and Evelyn helps Chad free his raccoon friend by doing the People Puppets trope herself, first as the puppeteer and then as the puppet.
• Phantom Zone: Alpha Waymond creates a "Burner Universe" where he can explain things by intercepting Evelyn before her tax interview and telling her she can either go to her interview or the janitor's closet, and slips her a note telling her how to Flash Sideways to the universe where she went to the closet instead.
• Pictorial Letter Substitution: In the featurette "Putting Everything on a Bagel: Cooking up the Multiverse", when the cast/crew members' names appear on screen, sometimes an "o" is replaced with a googly eye.
• Pipe Pain: In one of Evelyn's visions, the antagonistic Deirdre pulls a pipe from the wall of the janitor's closet and uses it to smash Evelyn's head in.
• Pixellation: The film does this to censor the private parts of one of the Alpha Trophy Jumpers who takes off his pants and underwear so he can shove a buttplug up his ass. (The other one merely strips down to his underwear.)
• The Power of the Void: Through unknown means, Jobu Tupaki was able to create the "Truly Everything Bagel". It merely existing causes a feeling of existential dread in everyone in the multiverse, and its implied that, if she chose to, it would erase the entire multiverse.
• Precision F-Strike: After Alpha Gong Gong pulls a gun on her and tells her that she will eventually turn out just like Jobu Tupaki, Evelyn suddenly starts dancing. It's so random that even Alpha Gong Gong, along with Joy and Waymond, are left utterly confused, and has the former dropping this with a straight face.
  Alpha Gong Gong: What the fuck are you doing?
• Pre-Ending Credits: The film begins to roll the credits at the end of the second act after Evelyn appears to die by having a fatal seizure from her mind being overloaded by her alternate realities as Waymond screams for help. However, it turns out that when Evelyn appeared to die, we were watching another version of the film that exists in an Alternate Universe where Evelyn is an actress and her character is The Danza. The film then continues from Evelyn's perspective.
• Pronoun Trouble: Early on Evelyn absentmindedly refers to Joy's butch girlfriend Becky with he/him pronouns. When Joy calls her on it, she tries to deflect that the difference does not exist in Chinese, but nobody's buying it.^note In Mandarin Chinese, the third-person singular pronoun always has the same pronounciation (tā), but it has different written forms according to the subject's gender.
• Pun: Jobu Tupaki makes a literal everything bagel. Literally everything.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: During the Final Battle against Jobu Tupaki, Evelyn shouts at Jobu for using First-Name Basis.
  Evelyn: Stop calling me Evelyn! I! Am! Your! Mother!
• Refusal of the Call:
  • Evelyn has a rather comedic response to Alpha Waymond's plea for help.
    Evelyn: Very busy today, so no time to help you!
  • After Alpha Waymond beats up several IRS security guards, he tells Evelyn to come with him, or face lie there and face the consequences.
    Evelyn: I want to lie here.
• Reincarnation Romance: Multiverse edition. In the universe where Evelyn doesn't leave with Waymond, they meet up again decades later where they are both rich and famous, but exceptionally lonely. After Evelyn informs him of the existence of other universes and how their life would have turned out as an immigrant couple running a failing laundromat, Waymond confesses that if he had another chance, he would still have chosen the other, more humble life with Evelyn.
  CEO Waymond: Even though you have broken my heart once again, I still want you know ... in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: The entire conflict with Jobu Tupaki ends up saving Evelyn and Waymond's marriage, the latter of whom had recently filed for divorce. But most importantly, it also saves Evelyn's relationship with her daughter Joy and mends bridges with her father Gong Gong.
• Rewatch Bonus: Knowing that Gong Gong will ultimately accept Joy's sexuality and her relationship with Becky really highlights how Evelyn's claims of his homophobia are unfounded, considering she's so hellbent on keeping him Locked Out of the Loop that we never actually know if he's still the man who disowned her for marrying Waymond or had significantly mellowed out and surely developed some regrets ever since Evelyn left for America.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: After beating up several security guards, Alpha Waymond asks Evelyn if she's going to come with him or lay down on the floor and wait for the police. Evelyn immediately states she's going to stay right there and lays down on the floor.
• Rule of Cool: The entire film runs on it. Mental Time Travel, The Multiverse, People Puppets, kick-ass action sequences inside an IRS office, all to tell a story of a family attempting to work through their issues.
• Rule of Symbolism: Googly eyes recur prominently through the film, with Evelyn sticking one on her forehead as a reference to the spiritual Third Eye and her perception of alternate realities. They represent anti-nihilism, black-in-white in opposition to the white-in-black Everything Bagel, the symbol of straw nihilism.
• Rummage Sale Reject: For the most part, whenever consciously picking her attire, Jobu Tupaki looks like someone who jumped into a cargo container full of clothes and grabbed the first ten things she saw.
• Running Gag: For most of the movie, Evelyn is completely unable to remember or pronounce Jobu Tupaki's name, and her efforts to do so get increasingly absurd as the movie continues.

Tropes S-Z

• Safety in Indifference: The mindset of Businessman Waymond from the alternative universe. He tells Evelyn that they should stop trying to fall in love with each other because "He who loves the most, regrets the most."
• Seamless Scenery: During Jobu Tupaki and Evelyn's confrontation in arc 2, they seamlessly move across different locations, from the laundromat to a forest and into a prison.
• Self-Harm–Induced Superpower: Activating universe shifts and accessing the abilities of your other selves is done by taking "statistically highly improbable" actions, such as doing something harmful, like giving yourself a bunch of really awful papercuts between your fingers or by using a stapler on your own forehead.
• Shield Bash: Evelyn uses sign-spinning skills to weaponize a riot shield.
• Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: Security at IRS almost shoots Waymond when he reaches for his fanny pack to pull out his lip balm.
• Shout-Out:
  • Arrival for the mind-shattering exposure to a round, black shape of alien origins, along with becoming an Anti-Nihilist due to it.
  • The opening sequence with the apes of 2001: A Space Odyssey is parodied in the hot-dog universe.
  • Alpha Gong Gong drives a super-powered wheelchair driven by a coffee-maker, just like the DeLorean and its Mr. Fusion in Back to the Future Part II.
  • As in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, the cobbled-together interdimensional vehicle drives through a desert, heading straight for a rock wall in one shot.
  • During the Pre-Ending Credits, Jobu Tupaki is wearing a costume heavily based on Black Lady.
  • While Jobu Tupaki is explaining her side to Evelyn, she emphasizes a point Evelyn is having trouble accepting by manifesting a picture book about it, with artwork in the style of Dr. Seuss.
  • At the start of the movie, the number for Debbie the Dog Mom's laundry bag (and the bag which Evelyn yells at Joy and Waymond for putting googly eyes on) is 042. 42 is "the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The Everything Bagel and its mind-shattering properties are also reminiscent of the Total Perspective Vortex from the books (but on a multi-versal rather than universal scale), and the weird actions taken by the characters to gain access to their counterparts' skillsets also remind of the concept of "infinite improbability".
  • The scene where Jobu Tupaki channels a number of alternate selves and brutally dispatches a number of guards while wearing outlandish costumes and basically acting like a cartoon character can be seen as a dark parody of The Mask, or even a nod to the much more violent original comic books. One part of the scene is even underscored by zany cartoon sound effects. The same scene also breifly utilizes some music commonly used in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
  • One of Evelyn's mispronunciations of Jobu Tupaki's name is "Juju Chewbacca".
  • The movie has alternative posters based on some of the most recurring different realities as if they themselves represent different movies, which seem to be inspired by other movies.
    • The sausage hand universe poster, "Amour et Saucisses", seems to be inspired by Blue Is the Warmest Color, which is also a Queer Romance.
    • The "Evelyn as a movie star" universe poster, "Fractured Personas", seems to be based on In the Mood for Love, a Chinese romance drama movie with a famous all-red background poster and the title in both Chinese and English.
    • The Rock universe poster, Rocks, is fashioned after a National Geographic Channel documentary, with the A24 logo changed to emulate the other company logo.
  • Wrestler!Deirdre attempts to perform Bane's iconic Backbreaker move on Waymond, which he blocks by placing an Exit sign underneath him, similar to the Adam West version in the Batman '66 comic using a Batarang for the same purpose.
• Show Within a Show: In "Evelyn as a movie star" universe, the main universe with "our" Evelyn happens to be a movie titled Everything Everywhere All at Once starring Evelyn Quan, the martial arts action star. However, that one has a very different ending.
• Sidetracked by the Analogy: Evelyn attempts to explain the concept of Verse Jumping using the concept of 'Raccacoonie' pulling on hair to control someone, only for her bewildered family members to point that it's Ratatouille. Played for Laughs later when it turns out, in one alternate universe, 'Raccacoonie' is a real thing — as in, a chef whose cooking is done by a raccoon under his toque.
• Significant Name Shift: At the beginning of the movie, whenever Evelyn spaces out during their meeting, Deirdre calls her "Mrs. Wang." In the final scene, after they've come to more an understanding, Deirdre calls Evelyn by her first name to bring her attention back to the taxes.
• Silence Is Golden: The scene where Evelyn and Jobu Tupaki are rocks is completely silent; while there is dialogue, it's not spoken out loud and is instead shown as on-screen text.
• Skewed Priorities: When Evelyn confronts Jobu Tupaki for the first time, she accuses her of being the reason Joy dropped out of college and is gay. Jobu is incredulous that that is what she is upset about, instead of the obvious bigger issues involving her.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The movie can be described as optimistically nihilistic. It focuses on deeply depressing topics like existentialism and the meaninglessness of the universe, but the film manages to tell its message with a lot of heart and uplifting messages. It helps the characters (and the audience) look at everything in a much more positive way.
• Slow-Motion Pass-By: The slow-motion montage of the two Ass Shove fighters flying towards Evelyn from opposite sides and she pulling the butt plugs out of their behinds.
• Smelly Feet Gag: Waymond gets knocked out during the first confrontation with Jobu Tupaki. He's jerked awake by Alpha-Gong Gong making him smell his shoe.
• So Proud of You: Implied. In an extended scene of the final battle, Movieverse Evelyn's Sifu tries to keep her from running after Waymond, chiding her for "only walking the path halfway." The pair fight, with Evelyn declaring her Sifu taught her even a cookie could be Kung Fu and that she's now ready to "chase her own cookie." Said declaration is what reminds her Sifu's analogue of true happiness and takes her out of the fight.
• Static Stun Gun: An FBI agent renders Chad unconscious with a taser.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • In the 2001 parody that provides the setup for hot-dog-fingers Evelyn, the version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" that plays is incredibly off-key and off-tempo.
  • One world we get a brief glimpse of is composed of crude animated children's drawings.
• Success Through Insanity: The first step to Verse-Jumping is to do an action that would seem completely irrational to anyone paying attention (i.e., eating lip balm, giving yourself a paper cut between each finger, blowing on your opponent's nose, wearing your shoes on the wrong feet, and so on). The sheer improbability of such actions weakens the boundaries of reality and allows the person to make the connection to their alternate self.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: Thanks to her ability to call on the skills of her alternate universe selves, Evelyn goes from normal middle-aged woman to martial arts master within seconds. At first, she is visibly confused at how she can possibly do this, but she learns how to harness it to great effect.
• Suicide Attack: Alpha Gong Gong attempts to use a grenade to kill both himself and Evelyn to keep her from becoming another Jobu Tupaki.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Alpha Waymond has access to a multitude of skills from across his multiversal selves, but still can't easily move a heavy filing cabinet because the body he's currently using lacks the strength to do it.
  • You'd expect an Obstructive Bureaucrat from the Intimidating Revenue Service like Deirdre Beaubeirdra to stop at nothing to punish the Waymonds for failing to file their taxes properly. In reality, however, the job of the IRS is to collect taxes, not to punish people; in real life they're usually quite willing to offer the sorts of extensions and leeway Deirdre ultimately offers as long as people work with them.
• Teen Rebellion: During one of the flashback montages showing Evelyn and Joy's complex mother-daughter relationship, one brief sequence shows Joy dressed in punk/goth attire talking back to her mother. Given Joy's age in the present (an aimless 20-something), this shows her during a rebellious teenage phase versus her present apathetic stage of life.
• Tempting Fate: Near the beginning of the film, Waymond suggests planning a trip, to which Evelyn responds, "If I have to think about one more thing today, my head will explode." Not only does Alpha!Waymond show up immediately afterward to introduce her to the concept of the multiverse, but midway through the film, Evelyn's mind literally becomes fractured due to experiencing thousands of universes at the same time.
• There Are No Rules: In the universe where they are both rocks, Evelyn begins moving, much to Joy's chagrin. Evelyn turns around to show she's wearing googly eyes, and declares, "There are no rules!"
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Several of the enemies encountered throughout the movie look like completely normal office workers.
• Third Eye: Evelyn places a googly eye on her forehead after mastering reality warping along with embracing how to fight like her husband. She ends up using this new power to bring inner peace to the Alphaverse Jumpers, Jobu's followers and her own daughter.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When one of the Alphaverse Jumpers learns he has to shove a giant buttplug-shaped trophy up his butt to verse-jump, he clearly hesitates as he stares apprehensively at it.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Basically the entire point of the film. While Evelyn's first jump is to someone who is a legitimate martial artist, her later fights are won by drawing on the skills of a sign spinner, a teppanyaki chef, a housewife with sausages for fingers, a blind opera singer, and even her own housewife self who simply went home earlier that day instead of coming into contact with Alpha Waymond.
• Title Drop: The movie is divided into three distinct arcs, fittingly titled "Everything," "Everywhere" and "All at Once."
• To Win Without Fighting: Jobu Tupaki and her minions are all ultimately defeated by Evelyn drawing them out of their Despair Event Horizon by reminding them of something that brought them joy. In Jobu's case, it's Evelyn telling her that even if life is nothing but fleeting moments where everything makes sense, that just makes those moments all the more precious as a result.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: When Evelyn is first pulled into another universe by Alpha Waymond while her family's meeting with Deirdre, Deirdre notices her not paying attention and snaps her back to her reality, admonishing her for not taking the meeting seriously. Alpha Waymond then gets her attention back, after which he says something very similar to get Evelyn's head in the game regarding the multiverse.
  Deirdre: I cannot imagine anything mattering more than the conversation we are now having concerning your tax liability.
  Alpha Waymond: I know you have a lot of things on your mind, but nothing could possibly matter more than this conversation we are having right now concerning the fate of every single world of our infinite multiverse.
• Undignified Death: Jobu Tupaki uses her reality-warping powers to kill a group of security officers in equally humiliating and hilarious ways, such as clothing herself and one officer in salsa outfits (with him in a yellow dress) and turning him into a meat shield.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: Jobu Tupaki's Everything Bagel looks like a giant version of its namesake but in perpetual shadow and a pure white void in the center. It doesn't actually suck people in past very close proximity, and with effort from both ends people sucked in can be retrieved.
• Vertigo Effect: Used in the shot where Evelyn sits at the IRS office and activates the earpiece for her first Verse-Jump.
• Villain Team-Up: Briefly, at the climax of the story, Alpha Gong Gong and his soldiers ally with Jobu Tupaki's cultists in order to ensure Jobu successfully commits suicide.
• Visual Pun:
  • The shape of the trophy for the best, most "anal" IRS officer is that of a buttplug. And it becomes a plot point.
  • Evelyn channeling the opera singer is halted when a mook hits her, causing the opera singer to foul up her performance. Evelyn finds another jump pad that requires her to swallow a ceramic frog - now she also has a frog in her throat.
• Visual Title Drop: At one point, Jobu Tupaki shows Evelyn a Dr. Seuss-esque book titled "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once."
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Evelyn vomits on-screen a couple times, once in a flashback showing her realizing she's pregnant and once during her seizure in the aforementioned Negated Moment of Awesome.
• Waxing Lyrical: Waymond explains subtle signs of wrongness in the universe: "Your clothes never wear as well the next day ... your hair never falls in quite the same way ..." These are lyrics from Nine Days' "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)," which shows up quietly in the background of later scenes (in different universes with altered lyrics).
• Wham Line: As Jobu Tupaki is moving between her alternate selves in various universes to find Evelyn and Alpha Waymond, she ends up in a bar where a news story about an attack on the local IRS building occurs. Then the person next to her speaks, revealing Jobu's identity in the Protagonist-verse.
  Becky: Is that where your parents are?
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • We never learn what happens as a consequence of the fight in the original universe. Keep in mind, it looks an awful lot like a terrorist attack in there, with a bunch of civilians and cops randomly fighting and destroying an IRS office building. Only Evelyn (and possibly Joy) could even begin to explain anything, and they'd sound insane if they did.
  • Also the Raccacoonie plotline simply ends with Chad almost reaching the back of the animal control truck, not if he actually succeeds in saving Raccacoonie or if he fails.
  • It's not certain if Jobu actually entered the bagel, despite Evelyn pulling her back. Either way, after the climax, we never see what happens of Jobu, and we only see Joy in the fixed timeline.
• Wimp Fight: At one point, both Evelyn and the minion she's fighting lose mental access to their alternates who know martial arts. After a second of confusion, the two start slapping each other's hands limply.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Applied literally by the skill downloading verse jumping allows. When Deirdre is taken over by an alternate that works for Jobu, she attempts a backbreaker on Alpha Waymond. Jobu later finishes off a police officer with a piledriver, drawing on a reality where they're both masked luchadors.
• Wrong Context Magic: Verse jumping normally only grants you the skills of your alternate universe selves, but Jobu Tupaki is so good at it she can borrow clothing and weapons from them, and even force others to verse jump (often fatally, such as transforming a man to confetti). Hand Waved by all matter between universes being made up of the same molecules, just in different configurations. The Alphaverse resistance has some way of bringing along the verse jumping earpieces and Gong Gong's tricked-out wheelchair, but Jobu Tupaki has them all beat in sheer, casual excess. Evelyn gains the same power in the climax.
• Wuxia: The movie can be seen as an absurdist parody of the genre. In one reality, Evelyn is a famous actress apprenticed with a martial arts master that's dressed like she came from such a story. Later, in her fights with Jobu Tupaki, one of the realities they jump to has them in period clothing in a misty forest setting that would be typical of the genre.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: A major theme in this movie is rejecting the hopelessness of nihilism.
  • This is especially exemplified in why "our" Evelyn is The Chosen One to defeat Jobu Tupaki; she might be the biggest failure out of every Evelyn in the known multiverse, but it's because of her being at rock bottom that she can reach into all the other universes where she lives much better and successful lives and grab from a nearly unlimited source of skills to fight and even save her enemies.
  • Near the end in the Return Home Universe, Diedre confides in Evelyn that they're both "unlovable bitches" who make the world go around. Evelyn rejects her claim and assures her that she isn't unlovable, which sets up their new friendship.
  • Evelyn neutralizes all Alphaverse soldiers not by violence, but by drawing on her alternate selves to help solve their hang-ups, ranging from unrequited romance to back pain. Their joy is enough to get them to disengage from fighting.
• You Are Not Alone: The theme of the film.
  • Jobu Tupaki is obsessed with finding an Evelyn who will become like her, so she won't be alone anymore.
  • Return Home Joy has her family reunited in their acceptance of Becky, with them becoming a stronger whole because of it.
  • Protagonist Waymond is so desperate to reconnect with Evelyn and remind his family that they are a family that he's willing to threaten to divorce Evelyn in order to get her undivided attention once and for all.
  • Alphaverse Waymond continues jumping in his post-apocalyptic world solely so that Joy and Evelyn will no longer be alone and so he can find an Evelyn who can save his daughter. Even in death, he celebrates every moment he spends with Evelyn.
  • Gong Gong of the Alphaverse forgoes his entire crusade of actively trying to murder Jobu Tupaki when he uses his Powered Armor wheelchair to help his entire family pull Joy out of the Everything Bagel.
  • In every version, Deirdre finds out she's not alone emotionally. In the Sausage Verse she reconnects with her spouse Evelyn, in the Alphaverse she's reminded of the joy of living by Protagonist Evelyn, and in the Return Home Verse she finds love and sympathy over her divorce in Waymond and Evelyn.
  • On a smaller scale, the Return Home-verse shows the Wang's Chinese New Year party going smoothly, with various customers showing up for the festivities, even the seemingly dismissive and self-absorbed "Big Nose". For as much as Evelyn believes the place to be emblematic of her failures in life, the laundromat clearly brings people together. Even more so when it's where Evelyn reconciles with Waymond, Deirdre, and Joy, and stands up to Gong Gong, earning his respect.
  • Chad of the Raccoonverse thinks of himself as having been weak until he met his raccoon companion, and Evelyn herself finds connection and enlightenment through her attempts to undo her sabotage and reunite the two.
  • Jumping in general. We become more powerful by connecting with versions of ourselves who made different choices, even the wrong ones.
• Your Head A-Splode: Jobu Tupaki blows up a cop's head via Facepalm Of Doom, which results in confetti instead of gore.

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"We can do whatever we want. Nothing matters."

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