[5][6][7] Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn Quan Wang, a Chinese-American immigrant who, while audited by the IRS, discovers that she must connect with parallel universe versions of herself to prevent a powerful being from destroying the multiverse.

The works of Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-wai, as well as the children's book Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and the video game Everything, served as inspiration for several scenes.

Its soundtrack features compositions by Son Lux, and collaborations with Mitski, David Byrne, André 3000, John Hampson, and Randy Newman.

In the present day, Evelyn is enduring multiple struggles: the laundromat is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); Waymond is attempting to serve her with divorce papers in an effort to spark a discussion about their marriage; her rigorous father (referred to as Gong Gong, Cantonese for grandfather)[9] is visiting for her Chinese New Year party; and she has a strained relationship with Joy, who is battling depression[10] and has a non-Chinese girlfriend, Becky, whom Evelyn is reluctant to accept.

In the Alphaverse, the now-deceased Alpha-Evelyn developed "verse-jumping" technology, which enables people to access the skills, memories, and bodies of their parallel selves by performing bizarre actions that are statistically unlikely.

Just as Evelyn enters the Bagel with Jobu, she pauses to listen to Waymond's pleas in her universe for everybody to stop fighting and to instead practice kindness, even when life is senseless.

Evelyn has an existentialist epiphany and decides to follow Waymond's absurdist[13] and humanitarian advice, utilizing her multiverse powers to fight with empathy[14] and bring happiness to those around her.

[12] Kwan described the release of the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), which also deals with a multiversal concept, as "a little upsetting because we were like, 'Oh shit, everyone's going to beat us to this thing we've been working on.

[22] It was announced in August 2018 that Yeoh and Awkwafina had been cast to star in what was described as an "interdimensional action film" from Kwan and Scheinert, with Anthony and Joe Russo attached to produce.

[25] Around this time, Kwan and Schneirt were invited by Marvel Studios to discuss the possibility of them developing the first season of the Disney+ series Loki, which also deals with a storyline involving the multiverse, but the duo, already not really interested in the project, declined as they were about to start shooting their own movie about the same concept.

[5][6][7] A. O. Scott of The New York Times described the film as a "swirl of genre anarchy", explaining that "while the hectic action sequences and flights of science-fiction mumbo-jumbo are a big part of the fun (and the marketing), they aren't really the point.

[38] According to Charles Bramesco of The Guardian, "The bagel of doom and its tightening grip on Evelyn's daughter lend themselves to the climactic declaration that there's nothing worse than submitting to the nihilism so trendy with the next generation.

Anne Anlin Cheng wrote in The Washington Post, "It's not only that the multiverse acts as a metaphor for the immigrant Asian experience, or a convenient parable for the dislocations and personality splits suffered by hyphenated (that is, 'Asian-American') citizens, including LGBT culture.

[40] Consequence's Clint Worthington wrote that "for all its dadaist absurdism and blink-if-you-miss-it pace, Daniels weaves the chaotic possibilities into the multiverse into a cohesive story about the travails of the road not traveled, and the need to carve out your own meaning in a meaningless universe.

"[12] The writer George Gillett argues that the movie is "a coming-of-age film for the internet generation", with the multiverse resembling virtual environments which viewers increasingly exist within.

[43] Other authors have linked the themes to those of Mahayana Buddhism[44] and Daoism,[45] with the recurring images of the bagel and the googly eyes described as "a surprisingly apt and humorous take on yin and yang", contraposing a "smorgasbord of meaningless nothingness" against "value where you want to create it and meaning where you choose to see it".

[47][48] Critics have noted that one version of Evelyn—a famous martial arts movie star—is a portrayal of Yeoh,[48][49][50] that Ke Huy Quan's experience as a stunt coordinator is used diegetically in Waymond's fight scenes,[51] and that James Hong's transformation into "a more sinister, English-fluent, Machiavellian strategist" parallels his character Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China (1986).

It features several prominent musicians,[56] including Mitski, David Byrne, a flute-playing André 3000, Randy Newman, Moses Sumney, Hajnal Pivnick, and yMusic.

[97] The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney called it a "frenetically plotted serve of stoner heaven [that] is insanely imaginative and often a lot of fun", complimenting the cast and score but found the handling of the story's underlying theme underwhelming.

[100][101][102] In her review for Vanity Fair, Maureen Ryan said, "Yeoh imbues Evelyn with moving shades of melancholy, regret, resolve, and growing curiosity" adding that she "makes her embrace of lead-character energy positively gripping.

"[103] Adam Nayman of The Ringer referred to the film as "a love letter to Yeoh [and] extremely poignant, giving its 59-year-old star a chance to flex unexpected acting muscles while revisiting the high-flying fight choreography that made her a global icon back in the 1990s".

[104] In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Jake Coyle wrote that although it "can verge on overload, it's this liberating sense of limitless possibility that the movie leaves you filled with, both in its freewheeling anything-goes playfulness and in its surprisingly tender portrait of existential despair".

But within the context of the film, it's a breather the audience and characters both desperately need, and the emotions are so heightened that just the sight of rock-Joy and rock-Evelyn sharing a companionable laugh is remarkably heartening and hilarious.

"[106] Dissenting reviews include that of Richard Brody for The New Yorker, who dismissed it as a "sickly cynical feature-length directorial pitch reel for a Marvel movie",[107] and that of Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian who described it as "a formless splurge of Nothing Nowhere Over a Long Period of Time".

[108] Armond White of National Review wrote: "Unschooled Marvel addicts who never heard of Kafka, Buñuel, or Chuck Jones easily fall for the entropy farce.

[110] The film has been regarded as a groundbreaking achievement in the medium of independent cinema for its production values, themes, story and positive on-screen representation of Asian Americans.

"[111] The site also included it on its list of films from the decade that are "Destined To Become Classics," calling it "both a massively entertaining sci-fi actioner and a deeply affecting family drama.

), and borrow skills from their counterparts, the Daniels never lose sight of the frayed emotions that are still tying the three main characters together, which in turn kept the metaphysical machinations feeling clear and easy to follow.

[123][better source needed] It won seven of its 11 Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Yeoh), Best Supporting Actor (Quan), Best Supporting Actress (Curtis), Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing including a record breaking six above-the-line wins (picture, director, screenplay and acting) and a record-tying three acting wins.

Beneath its veneer of impish, form-busting radicalism, it's as epically self-important, broadly sentimental and thematically unambiguous a movie as any the academy has so honored.