A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.
With her laundromat teetering on the brink of failure and her marriage to wimpy husband Waymond on the rocks, overworked Evelyn Wang struggles to cope with everything, including a tattered relationship with her judgmental father and daughter. And as if facing a gloomy midlife crisis wasn't enough, Evelyn must brace herself up for an unpleasant meeting with an impersonal bureaucrat: Deirdre, the shabbily dressed IRS auditor. However, as the stern agent loses patience, an inexplicable multiverse rift becomes an eye-opening exploration of parallel realities. Will Evelyn jump down the rabbit hole? But how many stars are in the universe? Can weary Evelyn fathom the irrepressible force of possibilities, tap into newfound powers, and prevent an evil entity from destroying the thin, countless layers of the unseen world?—Nick Riganas
Evelyn Wang is going through the motions of life in trying to achieve some sort of fulfillment, which she may or may not admit to herself has, so far, been unsuccessful at almost any level. She and her husband, Waymond Wang, own and operate a laundromat, and while she loved him when they were first married - marrying him against the advice of her judgmental father's - she now feels that he is a weak man whose messes she has to fix. On the flip side, she has no idea that he has had papers drawn for divorce, or that he only plans on going through with it as a last resort if things between them don't improve. She feels she has never really had the love or respect of her father - whom she ran away from as a young adult - and now he has come from Asia to the US to live with her and Waymond. Evelyn and Waymond's only offspring, young adult Joy Wang, has turned into a version of her by pulling away, not feeling any love or getting any respect, and as such, being aimless in life. What may be the pinnacle of the mother/daughter problems is that Joy has not only brought her girlfriend Becky into their lives - how to explain Becky to her father and others like him; the biggest issue in the same sex vein - but Becky is also white. Conversely, Evelyn's life could have been so much more if she made different choices or followed through with any of the many other things she started. On top of preparing for a Chinese New Year's Eve party under the pressure of trying to meet the exacting standards of her father, she and Waymond are also in the middle of an IRS audit by their auditor, hard-nosed Deirdre Beaubeirdre. As Evelyn and Waymond enter into what is supposed to be their final "show me the proper paperwork or else" meeting with Deirdre, Evelyn physically and metaphysically enters into alternate universes, where she not only has to make the right choices to save the collective universe, but arguably more importantly, come to a true understanding of herself.—Huggo
Evelyn Wang and her husband, Waymond, run a laundromat. Times are tough, and they're in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service. There's also some fuss with their daughter, and Evelyn's father is a constant source of belittlement and scorn. And now, Waymond wants a divorce. Could things have turned out differently for Evelyn--maybe in a parallel universe?—grantss
A middle-aged Chinese laundromat owner must get in touch with her other selves who are scattered across the multiverse. This woman is the key to saving reality itself, but she can't do it alone; her family's fate is intertwined with the fate of the multiverse too.—Johnny-the-Film-Sentinel-2187
Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is a middle-aged Chinese American immigrant who runs a laundromat with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan); two decades earlier, they eloped to the United States and had a daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). In the present day, the laundromat is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); Waymond is trying to serve Evelyn divorce papers in an attempt to get her attention so they can talk about their marriage; Evelyn's stern and demanding father (referred to as Gong Gong (James Hong), Cantonese for 'grandfather') is visiting for her Chinese New Year party; and Joy is dealing with depression and has a strained relationship with her mother, which also includes Evelyn's reluctance to accept Joy's lesbian relationship with her non-Chinese girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel).
At a tense meeting with IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), Waymond's body is taken over by Alpha-Waymond, a version of Waymond from the "Alphaverse." Alpha-Waymond explains to Evelyn that many parallel universes exist because every life choice creates a new alternative universe. The Alphaverse, led by the late 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. The multiverse is threatened by Jobu Tupaki (Alpha-Joy), whose mind was splintered after Alpha-Evelyn pushed her to extensively verse-jump; Jobu experiences all universes at once and can verse-jump and manipulate matter at will. She has created a black hole-like "everything bagel" topped with everything, which appears as a Toroid singularity that could destroy the multiverse.
Alpha-Evelyn made it the task of the alpha-verse to find the one who can stand up to Jobu Tupaki.While Evelyn goes into a different Universe, her body in the original universe stays, but her mind is not there. This happens during the audit meeting with Deirdre and the meeting is not going well. She says Evelyn is charging her hobbies as business expenses, and can be charged for fraud, or will have to pay a fine. In her confusion Evelyn strikes Deirdre during the audit who calls security. Alpha-Waymond appears again inside Waymond's body and helps Evelyn escape.They are still trapped inside the IRS building as Dierdre from a tetra-verse appears inside Dierdre's body and blocks their path.
Evelyn is given verse-jumping technology by Alpha-Waymond to fight Jobu's minions, who converge on the IRS building. She discovers other universes in which she made different choices and flourished, such as becoming a Kung Fu master and film star; she also learns of Waymond's plans with the divorce papers. Evelyn uses her powers to defeat Alpha-Dierdre and the other minions. Jobu Tupaki directs all the minions to the IRS building in the original Evelyn's universe when she senses that Evelyn has started gaining powers.Alpha-Waymond believes that Evelyn, as the greatest "failure" of all Evelyns in the multiverse, has the untapped potential to defeat Jobu. Gong Gong is taken over by Alpha-Gong Gong, who instructs Evelyn to kill Joy to stop Jobu from using her to enter Evelyn's universe.Evelyn refuses and decides to face Jobu by gaining powers through repeated verse-jumping. Evelyn believes that the only way to defeat Jobu Tupaki is to become like her.Alpha-Gong Gong, convinced that Evelyn's mind has been compromised like Jobu's, sends soldiers after Evelyn. While they fight, Jobu locates and kills Alpha-Waymond in the Alphaverse. As Jobu confronts Evelyn in her universe (she shows Evelyn the real bagel black hole and tells her that the real truth is that nothing matters), Evelyn's mind splinters, and she collapses.
Evelyn uncontrollably verse-jumps alongside Jobu across bizarre and diverse universes. Jobu reveals she does not want to fight at all, but that instead, she has been searching for an Evelyn who can see, as she does, that nothing matters, while killing the Evelyns that do not agree with her. She brings Evelyn to the everything bagel, explaining that she wants to use it to allow herself and Evelyn to truly die. Upon looking into the bagel, Evelyn is initially persuaded, and acts cruelly and Nihilistically in her other universes, hurting those around her (she even signs the divorce papers with Waymond and proceeds to destroy her own laundromat).
As Evelyn is about to enter the bagel with Jobu, she pauses to listen to Waymond's pleas in her universe for everybody to stop fighting and to instead be kind, even when life does not make sense. In her home universe, Evelyn reconciles with Waymond, accepts Joy and Becky's relationship and tells Gong Gong of it, and talks with Deirdre after Waymond convinces Deirdre to let them redo their taxesEvelyn has an existentialist epiphany and decides to follow Waymond's absurdist and humanist advice, using her multiverse powers to fight with empathy and brings happiness to those around her; in doing so, she repairs her damage in the other universes and neutralizes Alpha-Gong Gong and Jobu's fighters.Jobu decides to enter the bagel alone while, simultaneously in Evelyn's universe, Joy begs Evelyn to let her go. Evelyn tells Joy that even when nothing makes sense and even though she could be anywhere else in the multiverse, she would always want to be with Joy. Evelyn and the others save Jobu from the bagel, and Evelyn and Joy embrace.
Some time later, with the family's relationships improved, they return to the IRS building to refile their taxes. As Deirdre talks, Evelyn's attention is momentarily drawn to her alternative selves, before she grounds herself back in her home universe.
