Episode 3: EveryLeech Everywhere All at Once
Episode Summary
Can an everything bagel truly hold everything? The guys turn to the film Everything Everywhere All at Once to find out.
Episode Notes
After considering the geography of leeches (1:59), Aaron, Banks and Evan dive into Everything Everywhere All at Once’s leechiest themes (6:56), scenes (13:45), and characters (22:40). To get some relief, the guys head to the shore for Leech on a Beach (30:05). They conclude by considering the film’s medicinal qualities (36:15) and giving an overall rating -- from 1 to 4 -- of the film’s leechiness (45:04).
We’re always looking to expand our pond -- please reach out!
Series URL: www.theleechpodcast.com
Public email contact: theleechpodcast@gmail.com
Social Media:
@leechpodcast on Twitter
theleechpodcast on Instagram
External Links:
AO Scott review [link]
Leech Anatomy article [link]
John O’Donahue, To Bless the Space Between Us [link]
Credits:
Hosted by Evan Cate, Banks Clark, and Aaron Jones
Editing by Evan Cate
Graphic design by Banks Clark
Original music by Justin Klump of Podcast Sound and Music
Equipment help from Topher Thomas
Transcript
Evan 00:25
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the leech podcast, most visceral podcast. I'm your host Evan Kate and I am joined by two leechy gentlemen Aaron Jones and Banks Clark. What's up guys? The Leech Podcast is show about movies that suck the life out of you. They also stick with you. They may even be good for you like a leech. Today on the pod we will be discussing Everything Everywhere, All at Once the 2022 film written and directed by Daniels Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. It stars Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis and James Hong. It won seven Academy Awards just a few weeks ago, including Best Picture Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and some of the acting categories. It was an independent film that became a box office and awards Juggernaut, for good reason, I think as we will discuss in the following, but before we dive in, we want to remind you that we are always looking to expand our pond here at the Leech. So please reach out to us at leech podcast on Twitter, the leech podcast on Instagram, and you can visit our website the leech podcast.com. All right. Before we dive into this rich text, Aaron, learn us about the leeches.
Aaron 01:56
Excellent. Well, as you know, Even and Banks, I always like to connect our leech anatomy segment to the content of the film in some way. And a really core part of the everything everywhere story is the immigrant experience. The mother and father have emigrated from China at some point earlier before the film started. And so I wonder to myself, what, what are leeches like in China? Okay. So I found an amazing article that I think connects both geographically and thematically to the film, if you will allow me it is titled, leeches revealed biodiversity treasure in China. I'm just going to read the subtitle as well. Researchers used DNA from leeches last blood meals to find out what animals live where in China's Ailaoshan nature reserve. Okay, what I get this way, instead of studying what animals were in the nature reserve, they captured a bunch of leeches tested the last blood that they suck. And that's how they found out what all animals were around. They called the leeches, quote, “A conservation surveillance tool.” So like, even though the animals weren't physically present, the leeches demonstrated their presence. It's like a weird little leechy multiverse right? Where like, everything everywhere, like every creature everywhere was present there inside the leeches. So anyway, fascinating that these leeches are being studied this way in China. And really, that's it for leech anatomy today.
Evan 03:37
Wow. Oh, my gosh, deeply enlightening. Thank you. All right. So we're gonna dive into this film. Before we do so. Just want to do our spoiler alert right now, we will talk about the plot of this film and what happens in it. So if you haven't seen it, please go watch and check it out. It is also I believe, rated R or PG 13. There is violence. There's some language. So be mindful that as you watch, there's some phallaces here and there. There's a couple things like that. Yes. So be be warned there. There are some things that might be inappropriate for certain audiences. Okay, thanks. What happened in this movie?
Banks 04:12
Well, everything that happened, happened in lots of places, everywhere, and it kind of happened all at once. This movie is all over the place. So this movie is about the Wang family and in particular, the matriarch of the family, Evelyn Wang, who's played by the great Michelle Yeoh and introduce this family of this immigrant family from China. They're in a state that is troubled, we learned that the marriage Evelyn's marriage to her husband Waymond is troubled and he's about to divorce her. We learned that there's a strange relationship with the daughter and you kind of see her just like be kind of a terrible mother. In the opening scene to the film, there's a strange relationship with the grandfather with Evelyn's father and then there's also like they're in tax trouble. Like they're getting audited for tax fraud. like Jamie Lee Curtis is the auditor has great whole setup. And like see you get the story. And then the story is totally interrupted by this multiverse traveler, this other this alpha Waymond Wang of the husband who's not him, he's from a different multiverse. And then all of a sudden, nothing makes sense. In the movie, we learn about multiverse, we learnt the ability to inhabit alternate selves and different verses to use headsets. And they have all these explanations about how it works. And I'm not going to even try to explain it all. But we also learn that Evelyn is the key to saving all of the multiverse because we learned that joy, her daughter in another universe in another area has become this ultra powerful being who has learned to inhabit everywhere, like every universe at the same time, living everything everywhere all at once. And then with such endless and expansive possibilities have developed this nihilism and has made an everything bagel little, like a black hole, destroy everything. Obviously, as an artist. That might seem absurd, but that that is the character of the movie. Like it's ridiculous and wonderful. And as the movie goes on, Evelyn learns to like realize her multiverse mastery potential, they have all these epic fights, and they end up also like coming together, and they become rocks, and the rocks love each other. And they become, you know, sausage fingered people, and there's ratatouille. And hot dog. That's right. And it just, it goes through all these different spaces. And in the end, they end up coming back together as a family, and in spite of being able to be anywhere, anytime, all at once they choose to be present with one another in this one, seemingly, alternatively, dull, but loving.
Evan 06:48
Indeed, indeed. Well put. So amidst everything that is happening in this film, Aaron, could you discern a leechy theme?
Aaron 06:56
I saw several. I'm just going to talk about one. And I want to pick up on the word that banks mentioned in the summary, which is the word audit, audit. My theme is the audit getting into the spirit of taxs and art. Because well, here's what it is. So much of this film takes place in the IRS building. And the entire crisis of this film arises because Evelyn's life is being put under scrutiny. And it turns out when you put her life under scrutiny, she might not like what she finds. Normally other people, for example, I'll quote the auditor who, who has this huge pile of receipts on the desk and says you may only see a pile of receipts, but I see a story. I can see where the story is going, and it does not look good. And so really, it looks like it's a tax audit, but it's an audit of her life. And I was just thinking about how uncomfortable it is to have your life scrutinized in that way. Because it illuminates so much failure, so many incomplete attempts at accomplishing her dreams. And for me, like watching her life become exposed in that way. I think that's actually really leechy that sticks with me this idea of like having your life held under review put under the microscope by someone who seems hostile to you who seems like your enemy, and then takes something out of me to watch that happening to her. I think there's also some real medicine there. I think we don't actually get the medicine without the crisis that the examination sets off.
Evan 08:34
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I want to pick up on that. So my theme was getting audited. No way. No, it was. Yeah, it's in bold on my outline. I would echo everything you've said. But I want to take it in a slightly different direction. Because I think I think the audit is happening for Evelyn's life. But as she interacts with Alpha Waymond, we see that the audit extends beyond the IRS office. She's actually auditing every possible world, every possible choice related to her life. And there is this sort of deep melancholy and sadness as she looks at all these other lives. She might have lived, where she might have been great at martial arts, she might have been famous, she might have been happier in a different way. She might have had a more seemingly meaningful life. And yet she sees now through this interaction, that she doesn't live that she doesn't have that she didn't live that life. And I think this film uses the multiverse to as Ao Scott put it, reveal the roads not traveled in everyone's life. And in that way, it's tapping into memory, but also living those memories forward into what might have been which I think creates just real pain. It reveals pain, it reveals the sort of loss of what could have been and that to me is really leechy watching her go through that and sort of be drawn to some of those different Evelyn's, but also real lies that they are not available to her. Now I agree with you, Erin, there is some medicine in that. I think we'll talk about that by the end of the film, but the audit, not just of the receipts of your life, but the audit of the possible lives that you could have laid out to me is really a leechy idea.
Aaron 10:15
I think she's constantly haunted by these other selves that she could have been there all these ghost whispering in her ears, you know. And there's this moment early on in the laundromat where she looks at the TV. And there's the sort of like King and I romance happening up there on the screen. And I can almost hear other versions of her whispering in her ear saying, once you wish you could have had that. Maybe you could have Yeah, if you hadn't married Wayman, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
Banks 10:41
It's actually that ties in real close to the theme that I really saw on this show that I really wanted to talk about, which is possibility. Yeah, just like, the what if questions, this movie brings up and just also more than just the possibilities, what happens if when we have possibilities in you, and almost like in a Groundhog Day situation, right? You are given the infinite possibilities to explore those, right? This movie is about any, like the all the things you can imagine and all the things you would never even think to imagine, right? The way that this movie then plays is what is the sadness that comes not only from asking all the questions of comparison about what if all the ways that takes you away from the present, but also what happens when we get so overwhelmed by possibilities that we have a hard time even making sense of anything, and I think, look at the character of joy, Joy really stuck with me in this film, you could probably hear a little bit and the description, she just has a really hard time with being able to be everywhere, being able to imagine everything so much so that it just leads to this nihilism, the black everything bagel. And what does it mean to then create meaning in the midst of possibilities that are infinite? And I think this just hit so well, in a world where at the, at the edge of our fingertips, right, we can have access to every possibility and compare ourselves to everything. And I think that this just is connected that had such traction for me in this movie. And I thought that that thing was just that that's the thing that stuck with me it I'm thinking about the most.
Aaron 12:20
So Banks, I was also thinking about this idea of possibility. But I was in my head, I was framing it around this idea of fracture. Because when joy has Jobu Tupaki keeps considering more and more and more possible selves across the universe. The result is that her mind actually breaks, it fractures it fragments into 1000, tiny pieces. And so it gives her this incredible power, but it's also this incredible pain. And it reminds me actually, I pulled out this book by Willie Jennings called after whiteness, where he talks a lot about fragments, and idea fragmentation. I just wanted to read a brief quote that I think echoes some things that we've said, and picks up on this idea of the immigrant experience when he says it's life formed in fragment in memory of loss, and the loss of memory of memory of loss, loss of the homeland, right. And then loss of memory. Whereas Joy's losing the language, she can't speak Chinese in a way that our grandfather can't anymore. And Willis has many of us work in fragments trying to tie together hold together, the witness of our peoples call it a cultural fragment, if you wish, that series business precious saving work, to tie together all the broken fragments that result from this experience, I think possibility is really difficult to manage in this film, especially for joining this between two worlds, the old ancestral homeland and the new land,
Evan 13:45
right? Yes, I want to move from there. Focused on Joy actually, because I think my leechy scene is centered on this first major encounter between Evelyn and Jobu Tupaki. And it is after this scene of violence, a very strange scene of violence where Jobu is dressed as I think Evil Knievel and walking a pig fights. She fights some security guards, she fights some pigs while walking a pig, I guess. And then beat them up with very large dildos. And, but then she sort of she takes Evelyn through this sort of portal between their fingers into this strange sort of ethereal realm. At the heart of it, she explains that she can see all these universes at once, and her great realization is that nothing matters. She says she's created a an everything bagel, which is this large, black bagel with various kinds of seasonings on it. That is literally sucking the life out of the multiverse. And it seems the film seems to be saying the trying to be everything or understand everything or see everything. It's actually it destroys the world, the metaphor becomes literal in that moment. She has literalized this sense of nothingness and chaos into a bagel. And at this point in the film, you know, Jobu is very much the villain character. I think that will shift as it goes on but, but at that moment, I felt like wow, this is this is bleak. This is this is nihilism. This is like, it's, it's surrounded by funny and absurd things. But this, this got pretty bleak pretty quick. And you see the stakes for for joy, certainly, but also for Evelyn, is she going to succumb to the sort of black hole of nothingness? Or is that going to potentially be a ground for something else, which I think we'll get to later. But for me, that was really leechy I was uncomfortable. I was I was scared it. It was jarring. And it was like literally sucking the life out of the universe in the life out of me.
Aaron 15:56
Looks like a leech. It is like, do you think bagel?
Banks 16:03
Is there a blood bagel? I don't know. Oh, my gosh, questions, questions. deep philosophical question. I had a similar interest for my scene, but my scene is different. You know, this, actually, as a movie, this is a hard movie, to pick a scene out of kind of like tree of life, in some ways. Because this movie just goes like you do not get to catch a breath. Because it's just every, it's just absolutely insane in some ways, but there's one scene that stops and it's when out of nowhere, they start to inhabit a universe where there is the only life is rocks. Yes. Yes. Right. And so like Evelyn and her daughter are just rocks on a cliff. And it's such a perfect portrait of like this same sense of emptiness, because that is, it's been interpreted like, there's no life, it's empty, it's meaningless. And then Evelyn is there as another rock. And Evelyn turned slowly, and then has googly eyes. Which is, I think one of the funniest things in this entire movie, you just do expect it. And here's this rock, bringing life to a scene, it's lifeless, Britney like personality to stone. And all of a sudden having this really this pause this peaceful moment, and the first moment of real true connection between mother and daughter and real growth and a little bit of healing that starts to occur there as they're really find some traction in the relationship and, you know, in the end, like, returns and they like Elon like jumps or falls or tumbles whatever rocks do down the cliff, you know, Chase, but it's, it's such a difference of like, when we encounter emptiness, which is, I think, the given of the film, is it about giving in? Or is it about putting googly eyes on and mirroring your own meaning into it? I think that for me, that is such a powerful scene that depicts that in a very visceral, beautiful, peaceful way.
Evan 18:06
It can Can I note something there? The googly eyes are women's trademark, right? So it's not just that Evelyn turns with sort of a loving gaze to joy. It's actually a loving gaze provided by Waymond to Evelyn like they're theirs. And we'll see this again as the film progresses. But I just want to note that the way toward that emptiness for Evelyn includes different eyes, literal eyes to see Waymond and his influence on her.
Aaron 18:33
It's not an accident. Maybe the eyes like an inverted bagel, right? It's like the white on the outside. Yeah, but I'm inside the opposite.
Banks 18:43
Yeah, well, like they have this bagel circle imagery throughout, right? Even like Jamie Lee Curtis, right, like drawing a giant circle on the tax bills. And you just see circles and mirrors. Mirrors throughout the film,
Evan 18:56
The laundromat circles,
Banks 18:58
Yeah, they're all over the place. But like the googly eyes are another circle. But it's a circle that is like a window to the soul. It's a circle that symbolizes meaning. And rather than an everything bagel, which apparently symbolizes a black hole of nothingness. There's some there's a conversation between bagels and googly eyes is something that I'm saying right now.
Aaron 19:24
The day has a conversation with your bagels and googly eyes. Yes. My scene is quite different actually. My leechy scene for me it comes down to just a moment were so painful for me to watch where after Evelyn has sort of begun to explore her powers and she's met this more exciting version of herself. She gets slapped into this reality where she and Wayman didn't stay in the IRS building. But they actually got in the van and drove home after talking about the divorce papers And I'm just going to quote the scene briefly. I think and before I read the quote, actually I was thinking about, it's symbolic that the movie starts with the IRS audit, but also that it starts on the cusp of the new year, the Chinese New Year. Yes, we're Wayman says I wanted to start off the new year on a new foot. Maybe you're right, maybe we would have been better off if we'd never gotten married. She says, I never said that. And he says, You didn't have to. It's the way you look at me. And there was that moment of deep and painful truth telling where even in the way that she looks come back to the theme of eyes again, or the motif of eyes, like her eyes look at him. And they see other possibilities. She wishes that could have been, and looks at him and says, not this. This was the wrong one. Wrong possibility wrong universe out here. And that moment, it hits me hard. I've watched the film three times now, every time they get in that van and have that conversation. It's not the most sexy scene in the film. It's not the most exciting scene by any means or at all. But just in terms of legions. It's a brutal scene. It sucks the life out of me.
Evan 21:15
It makes me wonder too, if some of the leeches scenes are the ones that are in the sort of the present non fantastical moments. There's there's that one and then I think, one that we'll probably talk about later, but when when Wayman says you know, I would have loved a life of laundry in Texas with you. You know, that's just such a it's such a powerful line. I was listening to an interview with the directors and they said that line had been in the script from like the very beginning through years and years of rewrites, it just always was at the center. And it pays off and it's but it's a moment of human connection amidst a very absurd and and fantastical story.
Aaron 21:53
Well, let me let me offer this idea that some of the leakiest scenes might also be these moments of betrayal, where you see that Wayman feels that she's betrayed their marriage and tried by thinking that it was always false, or I was not good enough. But this moment of betrayal. Also, when it's that moment, when Joy fails to speak, a good Chinese grandfather is looking for the word girlfriend. And her mother betrays her. Yes, and that moment, and it's not fantastical, there's no kung fu. It's just this moment of deep human betrayal, where her mother doesn't stand up for I think it's kind of the nail in the coffin for their relationship, or so it seems. I guess all I'm saying is, even if this movie seems like an action movie, or comedy, it's a leech movie.
Evan 22:38
Yeah. Now you're right, you're right.
Banks 22:40
I like it, it expands. Like we've talked about this before. Like, we tend to sometimes focus on leechy movies as being these really heavy, hard, sad movies. This movie, it's got some teeth, got some teeth. For me, I think there's also some characters that got some teeth. I, when I think about a leechy character in this film, I spent a lot of time trying to think about it in the ends. I think that Michelle Yeoh did such a wonderful job in this film, her portrayal of Evelyn Wang just has stuck with me. And so Evelyn is this incredibly leechy character, because you, it's a, you see this progression of her throughout the film from being so caught up in the things that don't matter. And then being, then it's just like a magnifying glass, focusing the rays of just everything, all towards the things that do and totally reshaping her life, in light of all the things. It's just such a profound story, that I can't think about anything else. And I think about in particular, you know, something that we also get to talk about is just what it means to be distracted. What does it mean, to be distracted away from the things that are important? And then for literally the most add movie I've ever seen in my life, to actually be about what does it take to remember the things that do matter. And that's Evelyn storm throughout. And for me, that was the thing that I've been thinking about over and over again. And it's her character that really tells that story in just a variety of different ways. And
Aaron 24:25
I want to follow up on that. And just to go back to that, really Jenny's quote about the memory of loss and the loss of memory. I think this is what makes her especially leechy character is that she remembers so profoundly the moment when her father said, if you go off with him, you're not part of this family anymore. Absolutely. And like the memory of loss haunts her. And it animates her as a ghost what I think of the film where she's constantly trying not to reproduce that same dynamic with her daughter, but profoundly does this kind of comes back to the Tree of Life. If again this idea of cycles and repetition, where she the same kind of rejection or brokenness or grief that she felt she reproduces it circles in her relationship with her daughter just circles it back around. She tries so hard not to and that's exactly what does it. Yeah, I do wonder though. I'm thinking about a different leechy character I, I really am compelled by her performance. But last episode on the Tree of Life Episode, we were starting to talk about the idea of goodness and whether or not goodness can be leechy. Yeah, come on. And obviously the character who represents and embodies goodness in this film is Wayman. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm not exactly sure about this. If women qualifies as a leechy character, he sticks with me. It's true. I know that he's good for me. Because he's the only person who seems to be able to get everyone to stop fighting. That's right. I just want everyone to stop fighting. Gosh, those scenes move me to tears every time. All three times I've watched the film. But I'm wondering, Is he taking something out of me? I think he takes something out of me at those moments where he names the truth, as I said before about their relationship. It's just the way you look at me, right? And there's those moments where his honesty is brutal honesty. That's the moment where kind of the over the proboscis sinks in. But then he's just so good for me. Because he says, I just want everyone to be kind. This is the way that I fight. Yes, this is the way that I find then nothing is and the nowhere and then the no meaning. This is the way that I find that even when we have no idea what's going on. It says we shouldn't be scared we should be kind. So beautiful. It's almost isn't leeching.
Evan 26:48
You know, I was tempted to go there myself thinking about RL from the previous from tree of life. And I but I was thinking initially about Wayman, from our one of the old rubrics we have of Alicia character is bold and pathetic at the same time. And I think early in the film, he he's definitely bold and he's, he seems kind of pathetic, but by the end, I don't see him as pathetic at all. She thinks he's pathetic, right? Yes. She's misled. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I find his sort of humble optimism and love as a survival mechanism, quite touching, actually. Really moving. So I I was tempted to talk about Wayman, but I'm going to talk about joy. Yeah. And I think I think actually, that's fitting that each of us have picked one of these three, because they're, I think, really central to what's happening in this movie. Just a side note, I think Stephanie Sue, she should have won Best Supporting Actress for this way over Jamie Lee Curtis. Absolutely. Yeah. Jamie Lee Curtis, props. She's really good. But Stephanie Sue, I felt like deep sadness in the core of my being watching her encounter the meaninglessness of, of her life and of the world. That that took a lot out of me. Like, I mean, just watching her performance. I felt fear. I felt anger, I felt melancholy. I felt despair, alienation. I mean, it's just life has been sucked out of me watching what's what she's experiencing. And at the same time, I think, I think there's real medicine in this character in this performance. Because I do think that Joy's willingness to face the nothingness of existence is actually essential for Evelyn and for the family to reconnect. It's not sufficient, we actually need Waymond we need his sort of active love and kindness, coupled with this, but you need you need Joy's honesty and vulnerability. Or at least Evelyn needs those things, coupled with women's love, to allow Evelyn to actually own her own choices, and to act with a kind of boldness. When she does that she's actually able to speak her own truth. Stop this cycle of disowning your child. That's what she that's what she does to her father at the end, and actually reach out and pull joy back from the void. So I I find that medicine in facing the harsh truth of reality, deeply leechy not sufficient on its own, but deeply leechy Wow,
Aaron 29:13
I love this idea that she needs. The Evolution needs the bagel and the googly eyes to
Evan 29:18
behold Yes, yes. Wow. Yes, they're inverses of each other too. I mean, like you said,
Aaron 29:23
it's the kind of the yin and yang it's Wow, it's it's helping me read the movie anyway.
Banks 29:28
Yeah, yeah. And I just think it's an absolute perfect the way that the movie comes back around at the end, and they all come to like, that's one of the I think the most profound things and joy is I think the fuel behind everything in this movie and is the driving factor.
Evan 29:45
Well as the movies begins, you think she is the offspring that is actually wedging the family apart, but in truth, when Evelyn attends to her, that becomes the ground impossibility of the family reconnecting. So it's just kind of amazing how that how the perspective shifts from the beginning of the film to the end. Okay, we've talked about very serious things here. But there's also a lot of not serious things in this movie. So I you know, I don't know you guys, I feel like I need to go to the beach. Relax with record Cooney hot dogs. I got my I got my chapstick in my fanny pack that I want to snack on. What are we doing for each on a beach?
Aaron 30:30
Oh, wow. It's just too perfect, right? I mean, it's on the beach. This is a visceral movie. Am I right? There are moments where I'm physically cringing so hard. Most specifically when things are going up people's butts.
Aaron 30:49
The Sodomy fight scene. You remember the moment the tax woman saying like, you don't get things like this? As hard as me and she wants the trophy on her desk and you're like, Oh my God. Is that? Is that okay for her to have on her desk? It's like you're not at all surprised to see going up somebody's butt later.
Banks 31:14
Oh my gosh.
Aaron 31:15
I mean, and also the humor about her being kind of like animal retentive or something. Yeah, doubly potent there. I'll say
Evan 31:23
I love to the deadpan way she delivers the line. That's like, I can't imagine anything more important than this conversation right now. With your IRS auditor.
Banks 31:34
Oh my gosh, I can't remember this having so much fun watching a leech movie. Wow. Like, but like the sheer like, the fight scenes were just anything can, uh, you have no idea. And I think one of the best things is the like the one of the climactic fight sequences, like going up the staircase, turning like, all the different ways of just like, you know, violence into like friendship and Robin like it was going through in some of the most ridiculous ways. One of the directors is a cameo. Like the one that's like all like SNM, like that's the director. You can see this. There's such a lesson and just how funny and how fun. Some of the hardest conversations can be and it's just for me that just that takes me straight to the beach. Things just don't have to be heavy all the time. Sometimes you can laugh and just enjoy yourself with just the sheer absurdity and silliness. That is just everywhere.
Aaron 32:40
I think there's a there's a way in which the sort of the human outbursts of tears and laughter are so they're sisters. So they're twins. Yeah. And this movie really exploits that, or takes advantage of the fact that the laughing and crying can be part of the same. We're gonna have everything. Yeah, that those extremes.
Evan 33:02
I think to that point, I'm thinking about the hot dog for years. We think we just have to have a minute about the hot dog fingers. At least Yeah, I mean, I mean, every moment is absurd with like, the evolutionary like 10,000 BC the ape scene. But for me, what really gets me about the fingers is whoever did the sound editing and sound design. The like slap of the fingers. Oh, like so visceral and weird. And hilarious. The sound of those fingers. So that really got me. But like you said, Aaron, like it's laughter in tears because I feel like one of the most poignant scenes is that imagine world where Evelyn and the tax auditor Dierdre both have hot dog fingers. And they're in love. And they play piano with their toes. And it's like, odd but deeply moving and lovely. So yeah, this film holds us together really? Well.
Aaron 34:01
This really shouldn't work right. It really shouldn't work. But it's amazing. She remembers the sort of like King and I romantic film from the early laundromat. Yep, then sees it with hot dog fingers. People squirting mustard in each other's mouths. So flippin’ gross. It's so beautiful. Because there's this moment where in order to verse gem, she's told she has to tell Deirdre. I love you. Yep. And she just can't mean it because in her universe, you're just the total antagonists. This is her enemy, the person trying to take her life apart. And so only in the most absurd and outrageous universe. Could they possibly be lovers? Yes. Well, what I love that the film does that actually at the end, like there's even in her universe. There's the possibility they could be friends. That's right. It's not unbelievable. that that could happen. Yeah,
Banks 34:57
I think that on top of that, like Quintus also give a shout out to record Cooney. I just this movie is just I think making fun of Marvel the entire time and maybe, like, all of like these action movie tropes and just having a blast like, like, let's play the epic music as if it's going to be a high speed JSON. No, you know, this is just going to be like Michelle Yeoh writing a man with his hair, like, like in Ratatouille thing in the world. Like I said, I had a blast with this film.
Evan 35:31
Yeah. And it could have been just kind of a throwaway line that speaks to like, an immigrant experience of like messing up a word like ratatouille record Cooney. So like, I've seen films where they've done things like that just someone messing up that word. But then they made into a literal universe where there is someone with a raccoon on their head cooking, and then they have to rescue the raccoon, they like, take it to the furthest extreme place. And it's somehow kind of gripping.
Aaron 35:58
Well, I mean, and then they they met first, it's absurd. That is more absurd than it's beautiful. Yes, because when he gets too tired to carry her, she picks them up. So the man has been written around by raccoon on his last life finally gets to be the one on your shoulders.
Banks 36:15
It's beautiful. It's nice. I feel like there, maybe we can, you know, we can pack up our cooler. Yes, because I want to transition on that thought from our lovely beach to a little high rudo therapy, and maybe maybe hirudo therapy happens on the beach, still, we can still go, let's go. One of the things I find so moving about this is, the ability to find meaning has nothing to do with absurdity. It has nothing to do with like meaning can be made in any of it. And this is a movie that just says, Cool, we're going to make this as absurd as possible and find, and you're going to be gripped by the stories, we are going to find tears in the midst of this rapid, because it is it just shows that there is meaning and as people coming together, there is an authenticity and a humanity that calls out. And that can always be found if you're willing to sort of have you know that Waymond like goodness, to keep seeking and trusting and loving. For me, that's one of the most profound things of this film is the meaning that comes through, in spite of the fact that it is the most absurd movie, you can imagine.
Aaron 37:28
Yeah. I'm thinking about this idea. I have. So there's so much medicine in this film. Let me just say that. Yep. So much medicine here. I want to draw a quick connection between this movie and tree of life, where there's a moment where I think Joy says to her mother, and this is a painful quote, because I'm all of your great greatest fears, squeezed into one person. And there's a sense in which that is the way that this mother sees her daughter. Like everything that's going wrong. And Joy's life is a fulfillment of everyone's deepest fears. But I think this movie does something really beautiful and interesting. And I want to come back to a quote from fathers of some low. Yeah, let's go on the brothers. Tree of Life. Yeah, where is this and it says this about children, says love children, especially. They live to soften and purify our hearts. And as it were, to guide us. And it's our that, that is all about perspective. And this movie is joy, or enemy or her guide. And, and I think that the ultimate point and beauty. And the ultimate guidance that joy offers is she tells her mother, I'm just looking for someone who could see what I see and feel what I feel. She doesn't want to hurt her mother. She doesn't want to destroy the world. Actually, she doesn't want actually to destroy her take her own life, even though she says that, at the deepest root of what she wants someone to just see with her and feel with her. She wants empathy, when like CO seeing and CO understanding she wants to be understood. And I think her mother has to become a much bigger person by the end of this movie, in order to give her daughter that. Then she is at the beginning and sort of watching that journey take place. Think about this. myself as a father for myself as a teacher. Like at root, what is it that people actually want from me? Or need for me? Yeah. Is it is it my evaluation? Is it my correction? Or is it just deeply my understanding? And I think this is revealed when Evelyn is fighting her way up the stairs towards her daughter and Every time she someone takes a swing at her, she actually just gives them the deepest thing that they need. Their true desire. It looks like they want to fight what they really want, is something something good. That's been distorted by fear or by paying. It's the same for joy. And I think that there's, there's a real invitation in this movie to ask about when you're in conflict with someone, and there's misunderstanding when you think you're looking at an enemy. What are they guiding you to in some way? What do they actually need? That isn't what the conflict is about. That's a profound lesson for me. And that's medicine. For me.
Evan 40:42
It's really well put here. And I think a lot of what I said about joy, earlier, I think summarizes the medicine I get from this movie, which is that there's something about being clear eyed about the seemingly meaningless pneus of life that can actually allow you to think well about the choices that you make. Yeah, but it is perspectival. Right? You can look at the meaninglessness and think your choices don't matter at all, nothing matters. Or, if nothing matters, you could also see that as an opportunity to love and connect. And I think the film begins with this notion that nothing matters, is the black hole sucking life out of the universe. But by the end, Evelyn herself says nothing matters. So let's do what you want to do joy, and that embrace can happen. So I think there's, I don't know if it's a dialectic or some kind of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, but by the end, Evelyn has incorporated the nothingness into into her life into her experience, and has used it to actually embrace meaning with her family, reconnection, joy, actual joy, and her daughter, it's deeply existentialist in that wedding film. And I think that is, I think that is always medicinal. And I think I see I think about students that I taught who I remind me of joy, the character, joy, who are facing a very bleak world and a very bleak future. And this film made me wonder about are there ways to name that to enter into that with, with people, not just young people? And in in stepping into it, find new unexpected healing and connection together? No, absolutely.
Aaron 42:34
Absolutely. And I think it's, um, it's believing that the choices actually matter, but matter in a different way, in a different way than you'd expect. Like it doesn't actually matter what you choose. But choosing matters. Yes. And there's a way in which I think I saw this in students to Evan, this sense that having so many choices, is actually really paralyzing, and demoralizing and overwhelming. The committing to something,
Evan 43:06
choosing something to laundry in Texas, committing the laundry in Texas, choosing laundry in taxes, choosing
Aaron 43:11
an imperfect child, even if a better reality could be more interesting, just because it's the one that you want. And then no one else says you have to want. And it reminds me, I'm just going to read one last brief quote, and this idea from John O'Donoghue, who I think makes this idea of choosing really beautiful, he says everyone is involved, whether they like it or not, in the construction of their world. It's never as given as it actually looks. You're always shaping and building it. And I believe from that perspective, that each of us is an artist, to create your own life to take all these fragments, and to sift through them and choose the few that matter to you in the Create a mosaic with them that makes you an artist. It's something this movie reminds me.
Banks 44:00
Yeah, you know, I think that you're saying it doesn't always matter what you choose, just choose. But I think, you know, when I when I look at this movie, being overwhelmed by possibilities, right, as we were saying in choices, having too many. And at the start of the film, Evelyn is focused and making choices and focusing on the laundromat and taxes and her life is falling apart as a result. The artistry wasn't there, there wasn't a there was a distraction on the things that were present, rather than the things that matter. Right and her being very absent, absent from marriage, absent from her daughter's life and really only focused on these other aspects and learning to find that art and find meaning in that and find the ability to not as you were putting in that quote like we are always making that world. Yes. And being aware of that. And so much of the story is about how do we make our worlds reflect the things that actually are life giving and are meaningful.
Evan 45:04
Yes. Now, do we want to rate this movie? Wow, leech ratings one to four leeches? Anybody have a strong thought?
Aaron 45:14
There's so much laughter in this movie, and there's so much sweetness and so much medicine. It's hard for me to imagine going above one to two leeches, personally for this movie, but I'm happy to be tucked in some kind of direction.
Evan 45:29
I'm at two. Okay. I do think there is a lot of medicine here. But I have to say I don't find as much of the like sucking life out of me, I think, the humor and the absurdity. Although it heightens many poignant moments, I overall wasn't sort of emotionally exhausted by the film. I was visually and sonically exhausted by the but but frankly, for me in some moments, that sort of visual filmmaking assault on the senses actually took me it distanced me from the story in certain moments. Oh, that was, especially on my first viewing. i And that's why I like the moments of real human connection in that sort of present moment, which you described Aaron, like those really stuck with me, but some of the absurdist stuff I laughed at, but I did have moments where I felt some disconnection and distance. Now I'm intellectually quite interested in the film. I think I mentioned earlier that this multiverse allows the writers to liberalize their metaphors so like a character's who feel stuck, literally become rocks in another universe, or a character who needs to fight for her to keep her family together. becomes a kung fu master in another universe. Like it's it's really fun storytelling device. And I think they've they've done the multiverse better than anybody yet on film. But I think I met it too. I think there's a lot to a lot of medicine, but I do feel a little bit of distance from it.
Banks 47:00
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna be the one who argues for a few more leeches on this on this. Oh, let's go just because we've seen so many films, you know, we talked about There Will be Blood, Parasite. In some ways, thematically, there are some themes that work really well. These leech films we focused on are hard films, they are not fun films. And I want to pose the question, can a film make you laugh this much and have this much fun, be just as leechy? And I see no reason why not? I mean, after all, right, the leech numbs you, even when it's taken stuff out of you. When I wrote it, yeah, it is a it is a taking away of some of that. And let's put this in conversation with tree of life. That is a movie that makes you really work. Right? And it is a very serious film. Yes, this is, I think that it has potentially just as much, if not more healing than tree of life, to give, it's not going to make your work as hard for it. But I think that there might be some therapy even in that, I think I'm convinced that joy is the lead us character like you sold me. And what we see in her journey, what we see in the dialectic between nihilism and existentialism, between meaning and meaninglessness. And the ability is for narrative and meaning to flow through any area. I found this movie engaging, and it's stuck with me. So I'm going to give it more than two. I'm only going to give it three. But I am going to give it a solid three.
Aaron 48:36
With me, I think I might have come up to two and haven't you met you reminded me of kind of the filmmaking quality and the soundtrack. A week ago, I was in Paris, living the good life, and everything…
Evan 48:49
…to do with your hot dog fingers eating?
Aaron 48:53
… my hot dog fingers! And I was looking for things to do, looking for concerts. Lo and behold, who's coming for their first stop to Paris? But Son Lux, the band that did the soundtrack to everything everywhere t, and I went and saw them. And it was, this is just like six or seven days ago. And then it was one of the most amazing shows I've been to. And, and they talked about the film at the concert. And they mentioned that. And you can read this in articles online to that. The lead singer when he saw the script for the concert, and for the film, he thought that the PDF they'd sent him was broken. Because like there are pages missing or something's wrong. And I think the the filmmaking achievement, actually, yes, of weaving together, all of these threads and all of these sounds to make a movie that I think has this stick with you quality above most that I've seen in the past few years. I don't know at least for me after two. Yeah, that's right.
Evan 49:53
It's interesting, Banks, to think through fun and engaging with Licinia because we we said Fargo last season was so dang fun that I think you gave it no leeches.
Banks 50:06
Zero. I stand by it.
Evan 50:09
I agree. Actually, you convinced me to go to zero. But I think and I and I'm again, I'm following as Scott here. But I actually think there's some similarities between this film and Eternal Sunshine. A sort of like sci fi ish with some like moments that seem kind of like horror, a journey into one's mind or memory or subconscious. And sort of imagining different worlds that's magically realistic, I guess. You know, multiverse is different than what they were doing Eternal Sunshine with memory, but but I think there's some similar themes happening there. I guess for me, you know, by comparison, Eternal Sunshine took a little more out of me. Yes, in this film. I feel like I could watch this film tomorrow. And I'd be ready for it.
Banks 50:54
not drain you in the same way.
Evan 50:56
Yeah, just for me like the leechiness is like, that's really good. But I'm gonna need I'm gonna need a minute before I come back to this. So that's why I'm at two I'm not at one. I think it's definitely has a lot of medicine and a lot there. But I'm, I'm meant to do.
Banks 51:10
Okay, that's where it falls.
Aaron 51:11
That's where it falls Thanks. I respect that. I respect it.
Evan 51:16
Yeah, no, I think it's good. It's good. All right. Well, listeners, we would love to know what you think of this film. How would you rate it? Would you give it for leeches? One 2.5. We would love any and all feedback. So please reach out to us again, at leech podcast on Twitter, the leech podcast on Instagram, and the leech podcast.com websites. We love hearing from you. Thanks, Aaron, and thanks for talking about this great film. Always pleasure. We will look forward to being with you all again. Next time on the leech podcast the most visceral podcast this episode was hosted by Evan K. Banks Clark and Aaron Jones. Editing by Evan Kate. Graphic Design by banks Clark. Original Music by Justin clump of podcast sounds, music and equipment help and consultation from Topher Thomas