By Ridwana Ali

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) exemplifies the aesthetics of post-cinematic form. Through a dizzying array of visual styles, tonal shifts, and temporal disjunctions, the film abandons classical cinematic continuity in favour of what Steven Shaviro calls “post-continuity editing” a formal strategy shaped by the chaotic, layered experiences of digital life (Shaviro, 2016).

Rather than offering seamless spatial or narrative coherence, the film operates like an exploded timeline, where multiverses, timelines, and genres coexist and collapse into one another. Its editing style mirrors the visual logic of the internet: fast, fragmented, and constantly shifting. William Brown’s concept of digital cinema’s “conquest of space” applies here as well; the film breaks spatial realism, moving freely across dimensions and locations without establishing shot anchors or narrative explanation (Brown, 2013). Space is no longer a grounded setting but a fluid, malleable plane.

This formal chaos is not accidental; it embodies what Raymond Williams once described as a “structure of feeling.” In this post-cinematic context, the structure reflects a collective mood of fragmentation, overstimulation, and ontological uncertainty. Everything Everywhere captures how it feels to live in a world of push notifications, multitap browsing, and overlapping identities not by explaining it, but by simulating its sensory intensity.

The film’s success among younger viewers reflects its resonance with a generation raised in nonlinear media ecologies. Emotional coherence, rather than narrative clarity, becomes the measure of impact. Through its disjunctive form and digital logic, Everything Everywhere speaks fluently to our fractured contemporary world.

References

Steven Shaviro, ‘Post-Continuity: An introduction’, Post-Cinema: Theorising 21^st Century Film, 51-64

Brown, William, ‘Digital Cinema’s Conquest of Space’ SuperCinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age (Oxford: Berghahn, 2013).

Everything Everywhere, Evelyn being pulled into different multiverses  [Movie clip]. Youtube. Available at: https://youtu.be/vT0Y3k32QRE?si=cP9xplChZL2W-yo-

Everything Everywhere, Evelyn emotional moment with daughter [Movie clip]. YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/T51QSG9VN8w?si=2chtuW5zcKRHR2s-