Everything Everywhere All at Once is a film that you need to watch more than once – not in order to decipher some elusive hidden meaning, but simply to be able to take it all in. Re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Alexandra Fehrman only needed to watch it once to convince her to take the job, although she almost passed on the whole thing…
Everything Everywhere All at Once was the surprise hit of 2022, brought to audiences by A24 – the company behind Midsommar, Hereditary, Moonlight, Lady Bird, Uncut Gems and HBO's Euphoria.
Mashing together black comedy, science fiction, fantasy, martial arts and animation and themes of money troubles, immigration, marriage issues and complicated mother-daughter relationships, the critically acclaimed film is an expertly calibrated assault on the senses. Writer-director duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as the Daniels) needn't have worried if people were going to get it: it grossed over $100 million worldwide.
At its core, the plot centres around a Chinese American immigrant who, while being audited by the IRS, discovers that she must connect with parallel universe versions of herself to prevent a powerful being from causing the destruction of the multiverse. What transpires after this involves alternative universes, an unrelenting Jamie Lee Curtis, talking, googly-eyed rocks, sausage fingers, a string-pulling gourmet raccoon chef, and a bagel that creates a black hole that’s capable of tearing the multiverse apart.
“I was burnt out and I was planning on taking a little time off when I was approached to mix this film,” admits Fehrman, “and I didn't know much about it. They said, ‘Just watch it’.
"I was approached by the supervising sound editor and other re-recording mixer, Brent Kiser. I said, ‘I'm gonna watch it, but I'm gonna tell you my intention is to take a hiatus. I'm probably going to pass, not because I don't want to work with you, but because I am very tired’.
"I watched the film that night and I called him immediately at 10pm. I was like, ‘I am so sorry about anything I said. I don't want to take time off. This movie is amazing. I can’t believe that I even suggested that I might not want to work on it!’ My reaction was that it was the craziest film I'd seen in a long time. I was honoured to be approached to be a part of it.”