When I was born in 2001, church membership among American adults was at 70%. Now, 20 years later, that number has dropped drastically to 47%. This drop in religious affiliation is particularly prominent among young people; while around 62% of American adults under the age of 35 were religious in the late 1990s, only around 36% of adults under the age of 35 are religious today. This drop is stark, sudden, and largely unprecedented; people have been practicing some form of religion for centuries, and yet the mere concept of religion has fallen out of favor in the span of two decades.

I think this is, in large part, a pretty good thing. Religion can and has been used to justify a bunch of morally wrong things, and the worldviews espoused by many of the most popular religions generally lack robustness. There are, however, a bunch of questions that are typically answered by religion that are now left rather nebulous. Why am I here? Christianity, for instance, would posit you’re here because God made you. How can I live a good life? By following God. While I find answers like these pretty unconvincing, I find questions like these both vitally important and, without religion, extremely challenging to answer. Now that we can’t turn to religion to answers to questions like “how can I be a good person?”, what exactly can we turn to?

Finding meaning after religion is core to Everything Everywhere All At Once. Joy’s (the film’s antagonist) whole M.O. is nihilism, and both Joy and Evelyn (the protagonist) must reckon with the fact that they are born into a world with no inherent meaning and they will leave the world the same way. The film, however, is a wholesale rejection of nihilism and an embrace of Raymond's genuine sentimentality; Evelyn realizes that while there is no inherent meaning to the world, the series of choices she makes in her life leads her to be surrounded by the people she loves, and man there’s something deeply beautiful about that.

Everything Everywhere All At Once excels beyond its existentialism as well. The movie is equal parts Russo-produced action movie, hilarious comedy, and family drama, and it balances these aspects elegantly. Watching this movie in-theaters was an incredibly memorable experience; all of the jokes landed perfectly, and hearing the rest of the theatre sniffle along with you in the third act felt rather comforting. Not to mention, the silence which fell over the theatre during the rock scene was super surreal.

God this film is so good. I went to go see it with my friend. By the end, not only were we both crying hysterically, but the rest of the theater was too. Such an incredible piece of art :)