Nothing matters, so we can do whatever we want

The optimism of despair in Everything Everywhere All At Once

I don’t know what it is about everything I’ve been watching lately, but generational trauma as a theme runs through so many of the media properties I’ve recently consumed. Encanto, the second season of Russian Doll, the Pixar movie Turning Red, and now Everything Everywhere All At Once. Or maybe it’s just that my mind keeps picking at it, finding that loose thread and pulling it out instead of stepping back and taking in the tapestry as a whole.

I’m late to the Everything Everywhere All At Once party. I’m late to anything with a theatrical release tbh; the pandemic took away a lot of the pleasure I had in going to a movie theater as an event and absolutely nothing excited me enough not to wait for it show up on HBOMax. In the case of Everything Everywhere All At Once, my local indie theater only began showing screenings last week, when it available on streaming as well. But I did go see this at my local indie with Bear and a few friends, the first outing to a cinema I’ve had in almost…