In EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022), a Chinese-American woman tries to finish her taxes at the local IRS offices, resulting in a cosmic battle to save the multiverse. Though it feels overstuffed at times and drags in others, overall, this absurdist drama-comedy is funny, is filled with interesting ideas, has a lot of great action, and carries a positive message.

The movie presents Evelyn Quan (the awesome Michelle Yeoh), a woman struggling with midlife crisis. Her husband seems goofy and weak to her, her daughter is a constant disappointment, her laundromat is failing, none of her dreams of doing something else have panned out, and her father, who’d once disowned her for marrying against his wishes, is now visiting. To make things worse, she has a meeting at the IRS with an agent (Jamie Lee Curtis, rocking this role) who is about to penalize the mess she’s made of things.

The meeting doesn’t go as planned. Evelyn is contacted by a force that sees her as the multiverse’s final hope–against her own daughter, who threatens to destroy everything.

The result might be described as THE MATRIX meets KUNG FU HUSTLE, as Evelyn must level up her abilities from infinite possibilities along with her perception of reality so she can defeat her nemesis, eventually realizing this is not a fight anyone can win. So she will have to fight differently.

The film’s marketing made me think I was headed into something like INCEPTION, and this isn’t that. The family drama is at the forefront here and everything–the cosmic conflict, apocalyptic stakes, and philosophy–stems from it. The action is a lot of fun, one of the elements lending the film plenty of absurdism that frequently had me laughing out loud. As a film of ideas, it’s less about the sci-fi aspect of multiple dimensions and more about existentialism–the meaning of the choices we make in our one crack at life, and nihilism and its own nemesis, compassion. In a lot of ways, with its local, lived-in focus for big ideas and general weirdness, this movie reminded me of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.

Overall, I liked EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE a lot, and I’m happy to recommend it.

Based on the novel by Emma Donoghue, THE WONDER (2022) is a psychological period drama pitting faith versus reason. Despite a difficult beginning, it finds its legs with a climax that had me on the edge of my seat. Overall, while it’s a bit sleepy in its first two acts, the whole comes together nicely, and overall it’s pretty darn good.

It’s 1862, and Elizabeth (Florence Pugh, who’s outstanding in the role), a British nurse, travels to a dreary rural village in Ireland to observe a young girl who appears not to eat nor need food to survive. As this is not that long after the Irish famine, you can imagine the impact this has on a religious country’s people, who travel far and wide to visit the miraculous girl. Apparently, this was a thing in the Victorian era; they were called the “fasting girls.”

Elizabeth’s task is to work with a nun in a 24-hour watch to determine if indeed some type of miracle is occurring. The town council set it up, with most of them fairly invested in the girl being the real deal, from the town priest who sees evidence of God to the town doctor who sees potential of discovering a new human faculty. Elizabeth suspects foul play and uncovers the truth of a family trapped by their beliefs in shame and repentance.

The movie takes its time, kind of a slow burner, which Pugh carries until the reveals dramatically ramp up the tension toward the climax. Overall, it’s quite a powerful story about salvation and the need for the right kind of it.

I do have one major quibble, though, which is how the story begins. We’re shown a movie production warehouse and given a narrated monologue about stories before the camera zooms in one of a constructed set to start the story. This did nothing for me and honestly wrecked my willing suspension of disbelief for almost the entire first act. At the end, they come back to it, and the device almost ruined things again. I just don’t see why they did that. It’s artsy and makes a point but man, does it throw things off.

Anyway, I liked THE WONDER one and found it powerful, and you might too.

From the creators of the German series DARK, 1899 is another mind-bending drama, though it leans into its LOST-type elements so heavily it comes dangerously close to jumping the shark. Overall, I liked it, and I’m curious to see more, but given how awesome DARK was, my expectations were a bit high.

DARK simultaneously frustrated the hell out of me and blew my mind. The German series about the time travel bootstrap paradox frequently annoyed me as the actors constantly showed up out of nowhere to make long philosophical-sounding speeches and otherwise scowl deeply at each other. I stuck it out, and by the end, when the beautiful whole was on display, I was pretty amazed. The show’s creators had meticulously built a corrupt world complete with family trees and a time loop that had only one way of ending. Looking at it as a whole, it was like seeing the inside of an old watch ticking.

So when 1899 came along, what appeared to be a period drama about a passenger ship that comes across a sister ghost ship certainly intrigued me. We’re given a fairly large cast of characters, focusing mostly on Maura, a doctor, and the ship’s captain. All of them, we find out, fled some trauma to take this trip to America. When they explore the ghost ship, things get crazy, and Maura learns her world may not be what it seems.

Overall, I liked it a lot. None of the characters stood out as particularly strong for me, but they’re all sympathetic enough, and there’s enough weirdness happening that every time you think you’re onto what the writers are planning, things get even weirder. I’m curious where it’s going to go next and excited again about seeing the whole when it’s complete, exactly how big this thing is going to get from creatives who think very big. That being said, the cast feels a bit too big, there are a lot of LOST-type tropes, and there are some annoying TV tropes like a guy shows up saying I have all the answers and a major character who’s been looking for all the answers freaks out and locks him up instead of hearing him out. And the nonstop scowling is back.

So I recommend this one. It’s not perfect, but I respect DARK’s creators enough to know they have some big things planned, and I’m looking forward to seeing how deep the iceberg goes.