The thing with everything, everywhere all at once (yes I just watched it) as a Chinese soon-to-be immigrant, is that Evelyn could be any one of our mothers. The way she acts, the way she hustles, the way she puts the welfare of her family first and nothing else - she is an embodiment of many many Chinese mothers, the embodiment of those whom we as children have grown up both loving and hating. For their strive in perfection, for their love for us that only serves to cut deeper into our wounds that never truly mend.
And the thing about everything, everywhere is, it gives you the sense of relief that you couldn't find in your life. Evelyn's acceptance of Joy's sexual identity, for one, is something that I know will never happen for me. And yet it still feels SO good to watch her stand up to her father and say, This is Becky, my daughter's girlfriend. (Take that, intergenerational trauma!)
Granted this is so, so small in the large scheme of things - which is really what the story is trying to tell, I think. That the universe is so vast and big and yet we get hung up on things like, who we love and what's in their pants.
I loved it. It showcased incredible relatability to my life as an east-Asian queer kid, at the same time gifting the comfort I have yet to realise in this life.
(It also has many elements of Jackie Chan, Jay Chou media that I am grown used to watching as an only Mandarin thing, and watching Western and Chinese immigrant cultures slowly blend together into its own singular identity in current trends is just. 👌👌👌)
