Everything Everywhere All At Once
Everything Everywhere All At Once feels a lot like modern life, infinite perspectives, endless alternatives, and quiet restlessness. What stayed with me is that the film doesn’t just show the problem, it hints at how we can deal with it.
I recently watched Everything Everywhere All At Once and boy is it a deeply philosophical film! As I was watching it, I couldn’t help but relate it to today’s internet culture.
In the movie, Joy experiences every possible universe and every possible outcome. Having seen everything, she becomes nihilistic and concludes that nothing truly matters. This feels like a direct metaphor for modern internet life. Today, we scroll endlessly through videos, reels, photos, opinions, news, and perspectives from all over the world, while sitting still. We get to experience everything without effort.
The more time we spend online, the more we are exposed to what the world has to offer. Every lifestyle, every belief, every alternative path. This constant exposure overwhelms us. It makes us impatient, dissatisfied, and restless. It nudges us to question our choices repeatedly and desire something new every other minute. For young people growing up entirely in this environment, the risk is real, becoming Jobu Tupaki, a metaphor for nihilism born out of excess perspective.
The film’s resolution offers the counterpoint. Evelyn realises that infinite possibilities exist, and that she could always be somewhere else, doing something else. Yet she chooses to stay. She chooses to be present in one imperfect universe, because there is always something worth loving in it.
That realisation mirrors my own experience. Being constantly exposed to endless alternatives has made it harder to feel settled, harder to trust my choices, and harder to stay with one direction for long. Seeing so many possible paths all the time makes you question your own choices more often than you should.
The movie doesn’t end by rejecting infinite possibilities. It ends with a choice. Even after seeing everything, the protagonist chooses to stay and engage with one imperfect reality. Not because it is the best option, but because meaning comes from commitment. It suggests that meaning is not found in trying every possibility life offers, but in choosing one path and staying with it, even while knowing others exist and what could have been. In a world that shows us everything everywhere all at once, the ability to commit to imperfection is what makes anything matter.