Yesterday I took advantage of a gap in my schedule and finally went to go see Everything Everywhere All at Once, which last week landed 11 Oscar nominations. My amateurish review: It is really, really good and deserving of all those nominations. I had a broad idea of what the movie was about going in but I was in no way adequately prepared for what awaited me. As such, I am going to need awhile to fully digest a movie so deeply bizarre, funny, and moving. Also Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness should have its title stripped because EEAAO has way more multiverses and way more madness.
Yet I did want to write for a moment about something that deeply resonated with me while I was watching the film. Ke Huy Quan plays Waymond, the husband to Michelle Yeoh’s protagonist Evelyn. Throughout the movie, Waymond (the first one we meet anyway) is not taken very seriously. He is kind, but seems goofy and is perceived to be less responsible than his wife. Yet on the margins, you can see all the ways in which he is trying to better everything around their family.
Late in the movie, (another) Waymond acknowledges how others perceive him and gives a short speech about how he sees the world. It floored me to the point that I had to go find the film’s screenplay when I got home to make sure that I got down what he said:
You think I’m weak don’t you? When we first fell in love all of those years ago, your father would say I was too sweet for my own good. Maybe he was right. You tell me that it’s a cruel world and we’re all just running in circles. I know that. I’ve been on this earth just as many days as you. When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything. I know you go through life with your fists held tight. You see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight.”
That was one of the times that I teared up. Waymond’s speech resonated with me because I have never heard anyone express so clearly how I see and try to live in the world. Honestly, there are many times that I feel like I am not taken seriously. Some people don’t consider working with youth being a real pastor. I know that some of my teenagers roll their eyes at what I have to say. I vocally love comic books and other nerdery that some think is beneath an adult. I am a peacemaker who tries to smooth things over and see everybody’s side. I am quick to make a joke to try and diffuse a situation. I seem sensitive. I do not exude confidence like many when I walk into a room and there are there times when I feel invisible.
But this is how I fight. It is intentional and not based in naivety or childishness. Through some alchemy of my personality, how I was raised, and the faith that was handed to me, it is a strategic way to face head on a world that can be downright cruel. I want to breathe joy, awe, and wonder into the world. I want people to be seen and not feel invisible. I want to do the hard work of kindness and goodness. I want to live out my faith in a way that is humble, honest, and therefore messy because I know firsthand how the church can wound or seem like just another self-help tool.
I am not great at it because, quite honestly, it is hard to live that way in this world. Yet it is how I hope to live. When I heard Waymond say those words on the screen, I felt it deep in my soul. That is how I strive to be in this world; to fight with joy, hope, and seeing the good.