Script Analysis: “Everything Everywhere All At Once” — Part 3: Characters

A week-long analysis of the movie which won 7 Oscars including Best Original Screenplay. Download. Read. Discuss.

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

Today: Characters.

Characters are the players in our stories. They participate in scenes, move the plot forward through action and dialogue, influence each other, evolve and change. Each has their own distinct backstory, personality, world view, and voice. When a writer does their best, digging deep into their characters, tapping into their souls, the players in our stories magically lift up off the printed page and come to life in a reader’s imagination.

But there’s this: In a screenplay, characters exist for a reason. Hence my principle: Character = Function. Writers can shade and shape a story’s character in limitless ways. But if you dig down deep enough, you can find each character’s narrative function, and that can become a lens through which you develop the players in your stories.

Same thing with script and movie analysis: Look at each character and think about why they exist and what their function is.

Today, we discuss the characters in the script for Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022). You may read the script here.

A list of the key players:

Evelyn

Joy / Jobu

Waymond / Alpha Waymond

Gong Gong / Alpha Gong Gong

Becky

Deirdre

Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert.

Plot summary: A universe-jumping laundromat manager takes on the mission of ridding all possible universes of the ultimate evil, which has taken possession of her twenty-something daughter. Along the way she finishes her taxes and saves her marriage.

Writing Exercise: Go through the roster of characters and analyze them in terms of their respective character archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster.

Major kudos to Judith Sears for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown. Many thanks, Judith!

To download a PDF of the breakdown , go here.

For Part 1, to read the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown discussion, go here.

For Part 2, to read the Plot discussion, go here.

To access over 100 analyses of previous movie scripts we have read and discussed at Go Into The Story, go here.

I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: Everything Everywhere All At Once.