If you missed the 2023 Oscars sweep, here’s the gist: Evelyn Wang (played by the legendary Michelle Yeoh) is a stressed-out laundromat owner trying to survive an IRS audit, a crumbling marriage, and a strained relationship with her daughter, Joy. Suddenly, she’s pulled into a multiverse-spanning battle where she has to "verse-jump" by doing weird things (like eating ChapStick or professing love to an enemy) to access the skills of her alternate-universe selves.

It sounds like a fever dream because it is. But at its core, it’s a story about a mother and daughter trying to find each other in a world that refuses to stop screaming for their attention.

We talk a lot at Screenwise about managing digital sensory overload, and this movie is essentially that concept turned into a 2-hour epic.

Our kids are growing up in a world where "everything" is literally "everywhere," "all at once." They have the sum of human knowledge, every tragedy on the planet, and a million "Skibidi Toilet" memes hitting their retinas simultaneously. This movie visualizes that chaos through the "Everything Bagel"—a black hole of nihilism created by the antagonist, Jobu Tupaki, who has seen everything and decided that "nothing matters."

As parents, we’re often fighting the Bagel. We’re fighting the feeling that our kids are drifting into a digital void where nothing is real and everything is "Ohio" (weird/cringe). This movie gives us a vocabulary to talk about that.

In the film, the Bagel is what happens when you put every single thing on a bagel—all your hopes, dreams, failures, and every YouTube comment section ever. It collapses under its own weight.

This is a perfect metaphor for the current state of social media. When our kids are on TikTok or scrolling through Instagram, they are being fed the "everything bagel" of human experience. It leads to a specific kind of burnout where kids (and let’s be honest, we too) start to feel like nothing matters because there’s just too much of it.

Watching this movie with your older teen is a great way to ask: "Do you ever feel like the Bagel is winning? How do we find the 'laundry and taxes' moments that actually matter?"

Let’s be real: this movie is rated R for a reason. It is not "Disney R." It features:

Is it okay for your 13-year-old? If your kid is culturally fluent and you’ve already had "the talk" about internet weirdness, they can probably handle it. The "raunchy" stuff is so absurd it’s more funny than erotic. However, for most families, this is a high school and up movie.

If you have younger kids but want to explore these themes, I highly recommend:

Many viewers and critics have pointed out that Everything Everywhere All At Once feels like a metaphor for the ADHD experience. Evelyn’s struggle to finish her taxes while her mind jumps to a thousand different possibilities is something many neurodivergent kids (and parents) will deeply relate to.

If you are parenting a child with ADHD, this movie can be a beautiful way to validate their experience of the world. It shows that being "everywhere" can be a superpower, as long as you have a "way home" (which, in the movie, is love and kindness).

If you watch it with your teen, don't jump straight into a lecture. Give it a night to marinate. Then, maybe over some actual bagels, try these:

Check out our guide on having deep conversations with teens about media

Everything Everywhere All At Once is a "must-watch" for parents who feel the weight of the digital world. It’s loud, it’s gross, it’s confusing, and it’s heart-shatteringly beautiful—much like parenting in 2026.

It reminds us that while we can’t stop the "everything" from coming at our kids, we can be the "laundry and taxes" partner they need to stay grounded.

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