Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniels, 2022)

[Mr Sausage]

I didn’t take it as distanced with the opening setting her up as distracted and overwhelmed so that she makes social faux pas, but nothing that necessarily would undermine audience identification yet. So it sets up well the complications of her externals, but the matrix scene is seemingly about her internal thought process which the film hasn’t explored on yet.

You think the audience was meant to identify with her choosing to call her daughter fat instead of the apology + heart-to-heart the moment needed and that both characters obviously wanted? And of course there's the mid-way reveal in that scene of the divorce papers, a moment where Evelyn leaves the scene and the camera follows Waymond. That already accomplishes what you oddly claim the film doesn't do yet. The film sets this up as well past the point of social faux pas. The whole scene shows us how she is alienating her family.

[knives]

I didn’t have that feeling at that moment no. Admittedly what I’m doing now is an after the fact reflection of why these moments were off putting to me and so I’ve undoubtedly said things that as I perform this reflection will have been revealed to be at best poorly phrased. For instance, I think for the moment a better way of saying it is that there’s nothing in that moment that suggests to me a delegitimization of this explanation which carries with it a lot of negative terms. That this short hand is almost immediately dropped makes me wonder why it was included at all given it is provocative.

[cdnchris]

I don't really have much to add to the conversation but it's really hard for me to dislike a film that casts

Spoiler

Randy Newman as the voice of Raccacoonie.

Wow, I didn't realise some don't realise that Evelyn is a flawed character and that the movie shows her going through an initiatic journey allowing her to get some kind of a slightly better person, in particular in treating her daughter is a less discriminative way.

Isn't this kind of an issue nowadays? At least on Film Twitter? I feel I keep coming across comments where people think any sort of a portrayal in a film, good or bad, reflects the filmmakers or that the filmmakers are intentionally promoting those "flaws."

[therewillbeblus]

Yes, and in this case all it takes is watching any of the Daniels’ transparent commentaries on their aims to put that to bed, but in fairness, that’s a lot more work than impulsively expressing outrage

[Mr Sausage]

I didn’t have that feeling at that moment no. Admittedly what I’m doing now is an after the fact reflection of why these moments were off putting to me and so I’ve undoubtedly said things that as I perform this reflection will have been revealed to be at best poorly phrased. For instance, I think for the moment a better way of saying it is that there’s nothing in that moment that suggests to me a delegitimization of this explanation which carries with it a lot of negative terms. That this short hand is almost immediately dropped makes me wonder why it was included at all given it is provocative.

I'm not talking about any of the things you found problematic. You can feel how you want about those. I'm talking about your claim that the movie does not take a sufficiently distanced or critical stance of some of Evelyn's behaviour, because that's just not true.

One of the elements of Evelyn's personality is her tendency to reduce people to some superficial aspect of themselves, and then reject them based on it. She does it constantly. She does it early on to her daughter in a scene so pointed and sad that I can only shrug my shoulders to hear it just bounced off you. The multiverse as a metaphor is there, among other reasons, to challenge that aspect of her personality by forcing her to see the people in her life from multiple extreme angles, like a cubist painting, and grapple with the insufficiency of that need of hers for dismissive summary. The opening scene does this in miniature--showing us how much Evelyn misses, and then concluding with Evelyn doubling down on her hurtfulness instead of learning and changing. The apex of this theme comes later, with Sausage-Fingers Lee Curtis. There, Evelyn has to grapple with the fact that her immediate impulse to reject the superficial thing that disgusts her is selfish and unfair, that she is crushing the authentic, deeply held emotions of a loving person for such shallow, self-centred reasons. By embracing that relationship in spite of the ridiculous hotdog hands, Evelyn commits to the same thing with her family, friends, and acquaintances in her original universe: embracing them in spite of what puts her off. She cannot continue to use superficial, dismissive reactions to avoid connection, even if there will always be part of her that's superficial and dismissive. It's one of the big themes of the film.

If you dislike this or that aspect of it, fine. I have nothing to say about that. But missing that the opening scene contain all of this? Missing that the film is in large part about her need to overcome this negative facet of herself? I don't know how you managed it.

[swo17]

Extremely reductive plot synopsis:

Spoiler

Mother doesn't feel comfortable saying her daughter has a girlfriend.
Movie makes up a bunch of crazy stuff.
Daughter: Seriously, with all this crazy stuff going on, that's what you have a problem with?
Mother gets over it.

[knives]

Yes, and in this case all it takes is watching any of the Daniels’ transparent commentaries on their aims to put that to bed, but in fairness, that’s a lot more work than impulsively expressing outrage

I hope it’s clear that I’m not impulsively expressing outrage.

Also, Sausage, I totally retract my previous statements that you’re addressing because they were poorly thought out nonsense completely disconnected from my original thought.

[therewillbeblus]

Yes, unless I misread your position, you seemed to identify your reasons as being exactly those I had suggested as understandable in earlier posts (though I think the larger questions about how much exploration the film owes to various targets or topics would be a more fun discussion in relation to its title the theme/tone hybrid of 'comprehensiveness'/'overwhelming engagement with everything', but I guess I'm alone there). There's been a pretty strong hate brigade against this film, and films in general apparently on Film Twitter, and I'm responding to Chris' general post about that.

[knives]

I think I might be interested in that as well or at least I think it provides a better frame for me to explain what threw me off. By trying to touch on everything everywhere all at once some things come across as thematic nonsequitors some of which took me out of the movie. For example, it seems like the big nose thing was intended to illustrate a general xenophobia on Evelyn’s part which fits well with Curtis’ character, but as placed and followed up in the movie it seems like a random much more specific moment.

[tenia]

Isn't this kind of an issue nowadays? At least on Film Twitter? I feel I keep coming across comments where people think any sort of a portrayal in a film, good or bad, reflects the filmmakers or that the filmmakers are intentionally promoting those "flaws."

I'm not sure but don't think so. In any case, it's nothing new, and as for Twitter, I'm seeing so many different profiles discussing movies on Twitter that I don't really believe about "Film Twitter" being a thing (just like there is no "the critic").
But of course you'll find plenty of people there who can't properly analyse what they've just seen, or willingly twist it to fit what they want it to tell for whatever reasons.

[Constable]

Here's what bothered me about the film and this is probably a matter of me not getting something and being an inadequate viewer, but the big finale of the film is the conversation with the daughter that supposedly resolves the issue in the relationship, but it wasn't clear to me what the issue in the relationship was nor what/how it was resolved.

The problem that's set up between them in the beginning of the film is Evelyn's unwillingness to tell grandpa that Becky is Joy's girlfriend, which seems pretty trivial, especially given that the parents accept her homosexuality and girlfriend. Somehow it's a big deal whether or not old, conservative grandpa who lives in another country and whom you probably don't see much of is told? We're not shown any problems between the two of them beyond that.

But, ok, let's grant it's a problem, it's not even addressed in the final conversation, to my recollection. In that conversation Joy says it hurts the both of them when they're together, so she wants to leave - what's that about??? All we saw in the beginning of the film was this conflict over telling grandpa, so what is this referring to?

Furthermore, the reason Alpha Joy starts rampaging seems to have nothing to do with the problems of original Joy in the original universe. If I understood things, Alpha Joy suffers from a lack of meaning after seeing all these different universes and feeling, consequently, that nothing you do matters. Meanwhile, the problems of original Joy are, again, not clear to me, but nothing to do with that. So it seems like it's two completely unconnected narrative threads.

Also, I felt that the whole "just be kind" thing was a little oversimple and sentimental. All it takes is being nice and now all the life problems of these people are solved?

Yes, and in this case all it takes is watching any of the Daniels’ transparent commentaries on their aims to put that to bed, but in fairness, that’s a lot more work than impulsively expressing outrage

Are you referring to some interview(s) in particular where they talk about this? Because I'd be interested in reading/watching.

I didn’t have that feeling at that moment no. Admittedly what I’m doing now is an after the fact reflection of why these moments were off putting to me and so I’ve undoubtedly said things that as I perform this reflection will have been revealed to be at best poorly phrased. For instance, I think for the moment a better way of saying it is that there’s nothing in that moment that suggests to me a delegitimization of this explanation which carries with it a lot of negative terms. That this short hand is almost immediately dropped makes me wonder why it was included at all given it is provocative.

I'm not talking about any of the things you found problematic. You can feel how you want about those. I'm talking about your claim that the movie does not take a sufficiently distanced or critical stance of some of Evelyn's behaviour, because that's just not true.

One of the elements of Evelyn's personality is her tendency to reduce people to some superficial aspect of themselves, and then reject them based on it. She does it constantly. She does it early on to her daughter in a scene so pointed and sad that I can only shrug my shoulders to hear it just bounced off you. The multiverse as a metaphor is there, among other reasons, to challenge that aspect of her personality by forcing her to see the people in her life from multiple extreme angles, like a cubist painting, and grapple with the insufficiency of that need of hers for dismissive summary. The opening scene does this in miniature--showing us how much Evelyn misses, and then concluding with Evelyn doubling down on her hurtfulness instead of learning and changing. The apex of this theme comes later, with Sausage-Fingers Lee Curtis. There, Evelyn has to grapple with the fact that her immediate impulse to reject the superficial thing that disgusts her is selfish and unfair, that she is crushing the authentic, deeply held emotions of a loving person for such shallow, self-centred reasons. By embracing that relationship in spite of the ridiculous hotdog hands, Evelyn commits to the same thing with her family, friends, and acquaintances in her original universe: embracing them in spite of what puts her off. She cannot continue to use superficial, dismissive reactions to avoid connection, even if there will always be part of her that's superficial and dismissive. It's one of the big themes of the film.

If you dislike this or that aspect of it, fine. I have nothing to say about that. But missing that the opening scene contain all of this? Missing that the film is in large part about her need to overcome this negative facet of herself? I don't know how you managed it.

Did you get all that on first viewing or only after multiple watches? Because it seems some people have the complaint that the movie throws too much stuff at you and perhaps overly understates some things that it's hard to make all those connections and make sense of it. That seems to be what knives is saying, as well.

And with the big nose thing in particular, I took that entirely literally. When Jenny Slate first shows up, she says omg what a big nose (even though JS doesn't really have a big nose), so I took it at face value.

I also agree with knives that a lot of what we are supposed to take as her character flaws in that opening segment of the film according to your reading (and I do believe you're correct, at least in that aspect of your reading) read as maybe not faux-pas, but relatable consequences of an extremely difficult and taxing day. So perhaps that could have been made clearer by not dropping her into such a hectic situation.

[therewillbeblus]

The "just be kind" thing is overly simple because we often make things endlessly complicated, when sometimes the simplest, broadest mentalities and behavioral approaches aid our intimacy with others rather than obstruct it with self-alienating over-analysis. That's a key theme of the film. There's a reason that black-and-white, simplified rules in institutions from religion to culture to self-help groups can reinforce feeling 'part of' and 'belongingness' in collectivist groups, in addition to simplifying choices for us in a manner that doesn't detract from our finite will power each day - while pervasive high rates of suicide/mental illness occur in individualistic, isolated communities absent of connective culture markers, and isolation can drain our will power when we focus on the many layers of every choice or idea or emotion that infiltrates our consciousness. But in this film, we see the breakdown between these cultural communities and the progressive changes and elasticity that occurs between generations, which also precipitates declining mental health and feelings of thwarted belongingness. So, just like in religion, for example, rigidity can become oppressive. But we also need some kind of simplistic language to cultivate harmony in such a lonely and increasingly-complicated world. The film recognizes that struggle, further exacerbated by the dissonance between cultural clashes in assimilation and generational traumas, and isn't attempting to 'fix' the relationship with a one-liner at the end. Rather, it's acknowledging that these dynamics are deep-rooted and complicated, and its the willingness to note our faults and entertain change that matters.

I don't think it's fair to read the "problem" as a surface-level issue with the grandfather. This is the tip of the iceberg, with a wealth of history and trauma underneath. Joy has made it clear that she's exhausted by her mother's ostracizing qualities. Her mother is not accepting of her homosexuality. Just because she doesn't shut the door on her daughter for being gay, doesn't also mean that she is supportive. We witness so many microaggressions in this film, which is a more honest observation of bigotry than a surface-level capital-R Rejection. I think it's incredibly obvious that their relationship is fractured beyond the grandfather- in fact, when Evelyn tries to do the surface-level Grand Gesture to 'fix' the issue by outing her daughter to the grandfather at the end of the film, Joy's response is to run away. It's one of the most honest and validating moments in the film, for even if Joy believed she wanted Evelyn to give her a gesture like this at the start of the film, after all we've witnessed and been exhausted by throughout the narrative, we can see by the end that their history is too rich to be erased by a turnaround act of support. It's Joy realizing this- that her trust with her mother is broken beyond the tangible action she sought- that allows her to sit in the same nebulous space as Evelyn has to, and thus they can find intimacy in a simplified idea of micro-level enthusiasms to care for one another, imperfectly, unevenly, nonlinearly, and as best they can- rather than resolve their 'problems' in one sitting, as if it's really a surface level problem. Which it isn't.

The Daniels' Q&A at my screening was very informative about their intentions here, but I don't think they've been coy about it anywhere. There should be interviews on YT and other corners of the internet where they've been candid. I haven't listened to the commentary on the disc, but I have to imagine it reveals a lot and more about these intentions than I got in the Q&A I attended.

[Mr Sausage]

Did you get all that on first viewing or only after multiple watches?

I've only seen the film once.

I also agree with knives that a lot of what we are supposed to take as her character flaws in that opening segment of the film according to your reading (and I do believe you're correct, at least in that aspect of your reading) read as maybe not faux-pas, but relatable consequences of an extremely difficult and taxing day. So perhaps that could have been made clearer by not dropping her into such a hectic situation.

Did we watch the same film? That scene went out of its way to characterize those behaviours as habitual, and the "hectic day" the rule rather than the exception.

[Constable]

I also agree with knives that a lot of what we are supposed to take as her character flaws in that opening segment of the film according to your reading (and I do believe you're correct, at least in that aspect of your reading) read as maybe not faux-pas, but relatable consequences of an extremely difficult and taxing day. So perhaps that could have been made clearer by not dropping her into such a hectic situation.

Did we watch the same film? That scene went out of its way to characterize those behaviours as habitual, and the "hectic day" the rule rather than the exception.

Where do you see that?

[Mr Sausage]

I also agree with knives that a lot of what we are supposed to take as her character flaws in that opening segment of the film according to your reading (and I do believe you're correct, at least in that aspect of your reading) read as maybe not faux-pas, but relatable consequences of an extremely difficult and taxing day. So perhaps that could have been made clearer by not dropping her into such a hectic situation.

Did we watch the same film? That scene went out of its way to characterize those behaviours as habitual, and the "hectic day" the rule rather than the exception.

Where do you see that?

It’s in every character interaction, so I don’t know what to tell you there. Much of the scene involves dealing with long time customers and repeated problems, and her quips and complaints have a hangdog familiarity to them. But aside from that, the shot of Waymond, following another abrasive interaction with Evelyn, pulls out the divorce papers and we get a close up of it.

Maybe you ought to watch the movie again?

[Constable]

Did we watch the same film? That scene went out of its way to characterize those behaviours as habitual, and the "hectic day" the rule rather than the exception.

Where do you see that?

It’s in every character interaction, so I don’t know what to tell you there. Much of the scene involves dealing with long time customers and repeated problems, and her quips and complaints have a hangdog familiarity to them. But aside from that, the shot of Waymond, following another abrasive interaction with Evelyn, pulls out the divorce papers and we get a close up of it.

Maybe you ought to watch the movie again?

Again, you're not giving me evidence from the film for the idea that she is habitually unkind, just flatly stating that her quips have a familiarity to them without anything backing the statement up. We're clearly presented with a day that is out of the ordinary - visit from the father, the noodles have to be just right for him, organizing the new year celebration - and she is clearly stressed out by all that, as well as the demands of the customers and the business. It's natural to take from that that if she is short with people it is because of how stressful the day is, not of her personality.

[Mr Sausage]

Where do you see that?

It’s in every character interaction, so I don’t know what to tell you there. Much of the scene involves dealing with long time customers and repeated problems, and her quips and complaints have a hangdog familiarity to them. But aside from that, the shot of Waymond, following another abrasive interaction with Evelyn, pulls out the divorce papers and we get a close up of it.

Maybe you ought to watch the movie again?

Again, you're not giving me evidence from the film for the idea that she is habitually unkind, just flatly stating that her quips have a familiarity to them without anything backing the statement up. We're clearly presented with a day that is out of the ordinary - visit from the father, the noodles have to be just right for him, organizing the new year celebration - and she is clearly stressed out by all that, as well as the demands of the customers and the business. It's natural to take from that that if she is short with people it is because of how stressful the day is, not of her personality.

I would have to go back and watch the film again to point out anything more specific than I already have. But what scenario are you outlining, exactly? Family falls apart because normally uncritical and pleasant mother is crabbier than usual one day? Husband has divorce papers ready in otherwise pleasant marriage? Normally positive store owner one day starts referring to customers with cruel nicknames and her family just goes along with it despite this being totally out of character?

You have far more to explain than I do.

[tenia]

I'm quite surprised by this discussion. While I gave up at some point to what was happening precisely in the movie, it's quite clear that Evelyn is as a whole a very flawed character, and that both the strained relationships with Waymond (hence the divorce) and her daughter (hence the whole multiverse story) are coming from this. And while I'm certainly no fan of paperwork, the whole situation going down with her taxes and tax collector also stems from her. She's just not a particularly good person initially and, well, the movie is an initiatic movie with her as a main character that ends up getting a little better, with her father coming and her tax issues acting as sparks for the whole thing to go on.

It's not as if this part is anything new in movies.

[Mr Sausage]

I just realized why I’ve been feeling a sense of familiarity: this member has done this before, in the I’m Thinking of Ending Things thread. It was slightly more forgivable since Kaufmann’s film is more inscrutable. But even there he showed a marked inability to comprehend surface level points coupled with a weird demanding tone. Like a man in a field full of wells refusing to believe you when you say there’s drinking water nearby unless you physically drag him to one and start spooning water into his mouth, and even then…

It’s hard to know what to say to this guy. Missing that Evelyn is a flawed, abrasive person is like missing Travis Bickle is lonely and alienated. It’s embarrassing. I don’t know how you can watch a film that badly. I don’t know how to address that. Narrate the events of the film for him like an audio description for the visually impaired?

Now that I’ve remembered who this is, I’ll leave this be. No reason to stick around watching a man drown in the shallow end.

[therewillbeblus]

Outside of all the clear evidence in behavior -including overt hints at damaged relationships- that could even be remotely perceived with nuance, the divorce papers are an objective measurement of there being an established long-standing consistently toxic behavior pattern that was just too much for this family to deal with outside of the day. Even someone who cannot appropriately interpret verbal or nonverbal communication patterns or other observational information correctly should be able to gather that much. It is, quite literally, written- irreconcilable differences, over time, as grounds for divorce

[Constable]

I'm quite surprised by this discussion. While I gave up at some point to what was happening precisely in the movie, it's quite clear that Evelyn is as a whole a very flawed character, and that both the strained relationships with Waymond (hence the divorce) and her daughter (hence the whole multiverse story) are coming from this.

The only issue with the daughter is that she doesn't want to tell her father about the relationship, other than that, she accepts her daughter's homosexuality. How does that make her a bad person or communicate to us that, outside grandpa's visit and the specific issue of telling him, they have a strained relationship? Based on what we see, we would assume that when grandpa's visit isn't an issue, everything is fine between them.

And as for the issue of telling grandpa, she's uncomfortable about the judgmental and conservative reaction of her old and conservative Chinese father, perfectly understandable and doesn't make her a bad person.

When you take those things into account, we don't have a basis for thinking she's a bad person and consequently we don't know whether the divorce with the husband is on her or on both of them or neither.

And while I'm certainly no fan of paperwork, the whole situation going down with her taxes and tax collector also stems from her.

Well, they're struggling financially, isn't that what we see in the whole situation? How is that her fault?

Ok, she claims certain personal things as business expenses, but ok, that's not some major flaw that makes her a bad person, who doesn't try to pay less on taxes, nor is it the main cause of their IRS problems.

I don't doubt that what you guys are saying is what the Daniels intended - a flawed person improves on their flaws through this supernatural adventure and comes out a better person on the other end - my point is simply that it was not communicated clearly that she is flawed. You can deduce that later because you see that the film is taking you on this journey of growth and improvement, but if you take that opening scene in isolation, I don't see how you can take from it that she's a bad person, rather than a person having a bad day.

I just realized why I’ve been feeling a sense of familiarity: this member has done this before, in the I’m Thinking of Ending Things thread. It was slightly more forgivable since Kaufmann’s film is more inscrutable. But even there he showed a marked inability to comprehend surface level points coupled with a weird demanding tone.

I'm just asking you to provide evidence for your claims. What's so weird about that? And why is it necessary to get antagonistic and confrontational over it, why can't we just discuss in a civil and friendly tone?

Ok, your claim is I'm stupid and can't see how the opening scene clearly communicates she's a flawed person, so give me evidence from the film for that. I've stated in my answer above this quote (in response to tenia) why I don't think your guys' arguments are valid.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't think Evelyn is a "bad person" - but why would one ever look at human beings across two extreme categories? I think the more important question here, since you're clearly struggling to see the character outside of self-constructed binary metrics, is 'what are my metrics for a good or bad person' and 'can I get any distance from those to see what the filmmakers are trying to say divorced from my own metrics'?

I just watched the opening scene again. First we get Evelyn's dismissive behavior towards her husband, which could be read as acutely attributed to the stress of the day as an outlier. But then the camera cuts to a close-up on the divorce papers. Oh, it's a pattern of neglect! Then we see Joy talking with her gf, Becky, warning her that Evelyn might make backhanded mean-spirited comments to her. "I thought you said that means she cares?" Becky says, only for Evelyn to interrupt and coldly say "I only made enough food for three" in a cold manner. Hmm Joy's knee-jerk warning + Becky's response that Evelyn makes comments like this actively on an ongoing basis (which she's interpreted differently until now) = Another pattern, especially when we read Joy's body language and facial expressions in her exhaustion at defending/making excuses from her mother.

I've already outlined this in another post, but Evelyn isn't overtly cruel as an abusive parent. She's neglectful, which carries its own form of generational trauma. Just because Evelyn doesn't tell her daughter that she won't banish her from her life for being gay, doesn't mean she's "accepting." That's more binary-thinking, that one is either accepting or not (I'm not gay, but my father's reaction to my sister coming out was similarly accepting in verbal means but cold and distancing with his energy, and it took a while to repair that relationship for.. what I think are obvious reasons...). She tells Joy that Joy should feel lucky for her being accepting on the surface, as if it's a gift for a parent to say 'Okay' but do nothing, and not take an active role in parenting her daughter or inviting her partner into their lives. Look, there are 100% generational barriers happening and the film is also absolutely compassionate to Evelyn's position in not having the same progressive tools as her daughter (even the long stall before "You're getting fat" has a lot of compassion in it, because Evelyn clearly wants to say something affectionate but cannot get out of her own way to do so), but he's expressing that this dissonance causes pain regardless of rationales in social context, which can help explain but not diffuse responsibility.

I really think the problem here is that a character is verbalizing they "accept" something and you're taking that at face value as the only communication that carries weight, and in the process indirectly negating characters' emotional experiences (as well as people who have struggled with these child-parent dynamics in some form, which might be almost everybody?). Most communication, even in western cultures, is nonverbal, and this is a family where the matriarch comes from a country where verbal communication is even less pronounced compared to nonverbal means. The Daniels do a great job including us into the dynamics here with overt visual cues, but upon revisits they lay it on thicker than they have to, spoonfeeding the traumatizing discord to western audiences using methods we don't have to make any leaps to meet.

It's unsettling to me that you can't see how saying one accepts a person as they are isn't the same as showing that with action. It's like apologies- where the apology means nothing if a person continues to exhibit the same harmful behavior and then says "But I said 'sorry'!" which perpetrates more harm toward the offended party because it invalidates their experience of being hurt. Someone in this very thread said they accepted your way of posting as challenging to engage with, and you responded as being emotionally hurt. Could there possibly be a bit of nuance in our ability to accept something in action and also not fully accept or welcome it underneath? Just because I accept that you have your own brain and way of thinking separate from mine, does that mean I have to fully accept your points?

[Black Hat]

I'm quite surprised by this discussion. While I gave up at some point to what was happening precisely in the movie,

Yes, the direction this thread took is a head-scratcher and right on with your other point too.

I made the mistake of reading Walter Chaw's heartfelt review before I watched this so, now I get to hate myself for finding this movie incredibly annoying and boring (why was this so long?). It's like they said to themselves, "let's make a 21st-century update on a Frank Capra moral tale and marvel it up as much as possible". It was quite successful in that regard but, I feel the movie was shallow, more impressed with itself, using the toolbox of cinema to cheat its way out of wrestling with anything seriously. It's also possible, if not likely, that the movie is a victim of its ambition. You can't explore anything when you present everything. Maybe that's why this hit home for so many too, because our standing in this world feels so adrift, that a mere acknowledgment is enough to set off an emotional chain reaction that really has nothing to do with the movie but, maybe that's good art?

[TheChubbyEmo1991]

I'm quite surprised by this discussion. While I gave up at some point to what was happening precisely in the movie,

Yes, the direction this thread took is a head-scratcher and right on with your other point too.

I made the mistake of reading Walter Chaw's heartfelt review before I watched this so, now I get to hate myself for finding this movie incredibly annoying and boring (why was this so long?). It's like they said to themselves, "let's make a 21st-century update on a Frank Capra moral tale and marvel it up as much as possible". It was quite successful in that regard but, I feel the movie was shallow, more impressed with itself, using the toolbox of cinema to cheat its way out of wrestling with anything seriously. It's also possible, if not likely, that the movie is a victim of its ambition. You can't explore anything when you present everything. Maybe that's why this hit home for so many too, because our standing in this world feels so adrift, that a mere acknowledgment is enough to set off an emotional chain reaction that really has nothing to do with the movie but, maybe that's good art?

I can largely agree. I thought that this movie was a wonderful filmmaking accomplishment. Awesome and appropriate use of CGI, and all very original too. In no way is this a stale and conventional movie. However, the themes are not really sold to an extent that I found truly satisfying. I felt that Evelyn's plight was very well done, and you got a good sense of why she was the way that she was. However, as an Asian American, I didn't feel like it did all that much to really dig deep into the theme of how her parenting was lacking and was hampered by her personal baggage. I like that they touched on generational trauma, but that's all they did was touch on it. I honestly though Evelyn felt like a very solid, if flawed, mother from the very beginning. I love that she calls Joy out at the end, because even though Evelyn wasn't really bridging the gap, Joy was a bit lacking in that regard as well. And Joy is still a bit too childish to really have that level of understanding and ownership.

They did a great job starting the conversation, but really could have done more there rather than more-so relying on it while really focusing on the visual composition of their movie. Still a great movie, but not really as affecting of a family study as many people make it out to be in my mind. In my opinion, Boyhood is the GOAT examination of family dynamics and parenting.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, definitely, but I don't think this film had the aims of trying to be some intricate or novel examination of family dynamics and parenting. What was more 'revolutionary' about it was in how the Daniels reflexively utilize genre and pop culture and the sensations of being burdened with stress but also liberated by the infinite possibilities of stimuli around us to ignite awareness and change. In the end, it's just grazing the surface of change, like you say, but that seemed to be the Daniels' intention from their comments in the Q&A I attended- just starting the conversation. It's a film about the challenging process it takes for us to become willing to change, so Evelyn is on step 1 by the film's end, but the hardest part is often to get to that step. They're focusing just as much on the absurdism of our particular existence and existence broadly in general, and that is fundamentally going to split attention from the other themes, which itself is thematically relevant!

I'm not as in love with this film as I was the first time, and can appreciate how that split focus can and has alienated some audiences, but the strategy also offers an opportunity to be inclusive. For example, my partner really liked it, but isn't always privy to the zeitgeist and is film-illiterate (wasn't even allowed to watch Disney movies as a kid) so she didn't get many of the pop culture references, including Raccacoonie. She didn't even know Ratatouille was a movie that existed. She has heard of bagels though, so she was able to understand the important part.