It’s in those slow moments that the film finds its soul amidst the glorious chaos and sci-fi mayhem. Evelyn’s dissatisfaction with her own life, as well as her growing interest in the cool, calm, and confident Alpha-Raymond over her own spouse, hits hard, and Yeoh captures the simmering anger of someone who, deep in middle-age, is taking stock of their life and realizing they’re as unhappy as they could possibly be. Her exposure to an infinite pool of alternate Evelyns, versions of herself who are wealthier, healthier, stronger, and seemingly happier, drives the point home. At some point, in the infinite web of branching paths that make the universe tick, she f***** up. And she has to live with that.

Yeoh is balanced by Ke Huy Quan (the film’s heart and secret weapon, whose work in the final stretch of the film is downright staggering) and Stephanie Hsu, whose Joy endures a journey best left discovered on the screen. These three leads, tasked with playing not just one character but other versions of these characters across the multiverse, reflect the film’s ethos, and its exploration of how we deal with our own apocalypses, both literal and personal. These three are the key to unlocking the film’s soul, laid bare beneath extended action scenes and buttplug jokes and that above-mentioned running gag about “Ratatouille” that I still can’t believe someone scripted, let alone filmed and edited.

And that soul is a troubled one. A soul so wounded and afraid that it has shut itself off from the world. The layering of cartoon gags and the maniacal pacing are not an accident, but a reflection of how we balance our greatest melancholy with mania. The world has gone insane, and us with it, and all we can do is try to laugh it off; to keep up. And keeping up feels impossible, doesn’t it? There’s too much, and it’s happening all the time. We default to sad and afraid and lonely, and we shut down. Not since Lars Von Trier’s “Melancholia” has a film so accurately depicted the anguish of clinical depression, the burning desire to plunge into oblivion, an overwhelming sense of self-loathing that coats the daily lives of so many like sticky, black tar. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is in a hurry because it knows that if it slows down, it has to confront this. And then it does, and in the process makes a powerful argument for the low-key heroism of basic human kindness.

A film that features extended scenes in an alternate dimension where people have giant hot dogs for fingers probably has no right to be the most chilling and accurate depiction of clinical depression I have ever seen, while also serving as an ode to decency in the face of despair, but that’s just one more surprise to add to the pile.

It’s easy to get lost in the darkness. It’s easy to give in, to take stock of the enormity of all that is seemingly unfixable, all that is broken. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is wise enough to take stock of the darkness, to plumb its immeasurable depths, but it is hopeful enough to search for a light: That glimmer of hope, that helping hand, that surfacing of truth everyone has been deliberately avoiding talking about because it hurts as much as it is necessary. We just have to look everywhere. At everything. All at once.

/Film Rating: 10 out of 10