I saw the movie ‘Everything, everywhere all at once’ and I thought it was amusing in its self conscious absurdist stupor. It was like every corny feel good, feel bad, feel confused Hollywood blockbuster but with butt plugs and inter generational rifts and martial arts.

I suppose it shows the lengths directors need to go to create something that illustrates the nihilism of our digital lives but also how we tend to laugh at our phones and the absurdist content that catches our attention on them. The impending darkness of some external force or entity whether it is a corporation or choose your spectre suits most taglines only in a far more self conscious way.

I find Hollywood movies very boring, especially ones that espouse a let’s fix it world view and if it wasn’t for the sheer absurdity of this movie and some of the sentimental mush I would have switched off and found another distraction. I do like emotional mush and I found the butt plugs kind of married the idea of what it means to get emotional, like do you keep it in or let it out?

The character Joy never seems to be allowed to let her world fall into chaos although that is more how the older generations see it and for Joy it is just the reality of her world. The pressures of the older generations and their obsession with trying to avoid taxes yet getting stuck in the same old grind and complaining while passing judgements on being fat, having a same sex partner or whatever else they can muster never really gets resolved.

It is cathartic though but is a similar experience to watching a few weeks of YouTube and watching thousands of images pass by which is the main point of the movie. I thought the ever changing scenes and perspectives kept me guessing but I still feel like I just watched another Hollywood movie and nothing has changed but they aren’t meant to change anything.

It is like the lowest common denominator and I am not saying I didn’t enjoy it but what I have heard from some people in the Chinese community who have friends in the US is the US government during the trade war and later dispossessed a lot of Chinese people and took their money and homes shutting down businesses and kicking that community in the guts. 

This movie kind of drops hints at the bigger problem, some people in the Chinese community in the US sold their homes and tried to leave, some got stuck in the racist juggernaut that is the US system of no mercy capitalism as neocolonial white supremacy. The movie shows a collision of worlds but a big hug and scenes of tears won’t ever fix some of the bigger issues but its a bit of entertainment that tries to let you think but think nothing at all.