Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) review

While on her way to have a less-than-friendly visit with her local Internal Revenue Service office because she's being audited, laundromat owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is suddenly informed by her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) - who isn't "acting like himself" - that there's a super powerful woman named Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu, playing a double role) who is threatening human existence in all of the dimensions and only she can stop her.  It earns a bit of credit, I suppose, for "trying something new" with the story and throwing everything it can think of at the screen - which should appeal to Generation Z's penchant for very brief video reels on TikTok and Instagram - but it becomes less appealing when you realize it's kind of cheap when it can just make up anything it wants at any time: "screenwriting" using a randomizer.  Setting aside all the jump cuts and accessing other universes by engaging in obsessive-compulsive rituals and other flights of fancy, it's supposedly about trying heal multi-generational abuse and trauma, specifically the damage inflicted by Evelyn's Father Gong Gong (James Hong) on her, and then Evelyn's treatment of her lesbian daughter Joy (Hsu, once again).  But let's be honest: it's about as serious in probing family psychology as it is in hot dog fingers, anal plugs and floppy dildos.