This movie’s one of many that I come across: ones that sound great, that I jot down to watch later, and never actually follow through on. In fact, the only reason I even watched it tonight was because my father picked it out this afternoon. While I’m dreadfully glacial in addressing my own ever-growing backlog, if someone else is the impetus for watching a movie? Say no more, I’m already there, dark chocolate Raisinets and diluted cucumber Gatorade in hand.
This movie though. This movie. I knew it was a science fiction film, and that it had won essentially every major and minor award worth cramming into its Wikipedia page. I’m grateful I had no true idea what I was in for, because it took me on a ride that felt like it stretched on forever, yet never lost my interest.
The cast was perfect, and I’ll let actual reviews speak to that in specifics. I read that initially, Jackie Chan was considered for the lead role. While I do enjoy Mr. Chan’s acting, casting a woman as the lead, particularly with the family dynamic served the movie far better. Coming into the film as someone aware of modern social trends, yet not the best at adhering to them, having Michelle Yeoh perform the role of parent at the end of her rope, reluctant action hero and mystic solver of problems all at once helped to not so much promote egalitarianism, but to subtly reinforce it. There was no need for explicit reminders of a woman’s power, or restraint of man’s. It was simply a person acting as she does in her increasingly distorted cacophony of a life—and I’ll not say any more lest I over-analyze what’s best left to speak for itself.
In a broader sense, casting older actors in active roles both physically and emotionally is a trend I’m happy to see this movie reinforce. It’s media that appeals to a demographic (one of several, naturally) often forgotten in popular media: those older than youth, but younger than old age. People who talk about being old, and may even be feeling it, but aren’t yet bedridden cranks and crones who risk their life with every tumble.
I already broke my promise to not blather on about things better addressed elsewhere, but now let me dive into what elevated this movie from merely excellent to soul-touching for me: the themes. Absurdity, surrealism, the concept of the multiverse—untainted by superhero overflow and micromanaging concepts—dominate the visuals and the story. Yet it’s the conflict between nihilism and humanism that appeals to me.
Intellectually, it makes a case similar to that of Nietzsche—that is, the Nietzsche that actually was, not the one corrupted by his narrow-minded sister and so many in times since. In essence, Nietzsche argues life has no meaning. There is no God, there is no grand purpose: we are adrift and at the mercy of time’s endless march. He argues the majesty of that revelation, that we are not left helpless, but free by the lack of guidance. That we can make our own meaning, and define our lives by the struggles we endure—in essence, the choices we make.
The movie presents undeniable chaos in the form of the multiverse; simultaneous life perpetually branching off into new paths. It reframes existence as a raging whirlpool, not a steady river. There isn’t one path, there’s infinite—and there’s no stopping it.
Facing the reality that one’s life is merely a single branch among the innumerable, Joy (played by Stephanie Hsu) embraces meaningless life. Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) learns through an arduous journey through what-ifs and why-nots that life has no meaning but what you make of it. She embraced the choices she made, not because she made them but because they led her to a life that was truly hers. Evelyn’s struggles, not those of her more successful alter egos defined her, that iteration of Evelyn who was introduced to the incomprehensibly bizarre truth of existence yet kept her head when all was said and done.
Emotionally, and most poignantly in my opinion, the movie embraces humans over humanity. There is no high-minded revelation that brings Evelyn new purpose, there’s her accepting her husband’s love, and her daughter’s life. There’s her acknowledging her father’s disapproval, and allowing herself the freedom to confront him about it. Evelyn achieves perhaps the greatest gift a single sentient being can experience: acceptance of the self, embracing and becoming at peace with the person she is in that moment.
My friends know me as famously easy to tear up in movies; Gladiator’s ending never ceases to make me sniffle. When the Rohirrim ride out on Pelennor Fields? I’m misty-eyed, and that only grows worse until I’m a babbling, sobbing mess when Samwise shuts the door on a story that only grows sweeter with age. When Evelyn confronted her father, when she voiced her acceptance of her daughter and her frustration at her daughter’s distance? My eyes grew wet, and my soul opened up just a little bit. There was no ulterior motive but total expression of feeling, yet with the measured wisdom only experiencing a life of highs and lows, successes and failures can bring.
I’m still seeking that moment myself; I don’t know when I’ll find it. Yet, seeing this movie so perfectly capture the human element amid so much psychedelic cinematography, where hot-dog hands starts as a joke but becomes its own sincere reflection of love despite looks, it heartens me. Our moment of acceptance of the self probably won’t be as visually stunning (or preceded by multiversal adventures and fanny-pack martial arts), but it will be no less beautiful to us—because ultimately, we’re the only ones who need to be happy with ourselves.
