I like the write up- have some thoughts of my own on it. So the movie is a personal one for Director Daniel Kwan- so I’ll frame my thoughts around his personal story. Philosophically, the movie is about a character losing their sense of meaning (Kwan losing his Christian faith) and experiencing a crisis of uncertainty- followed by the all so common journey from Nihilism into Existential Absurdism. That’s basically it, though I don’t think it’s simplistic at all. Unless we want to call Camus simplistic (I recall Kwan stated he prefers the writings of Vonnegut to Camus- I haven’t read Vonnegut so I don’t really know his takes on absurdism and how they diverge from Camus.) I agree the film builds around MWI, and I think the absurd scenarios are consistent with the absurd implications of MWI.

What doesn’t quite work for me is the idea of a characters consciousness being tied only to their consciousness of other worlds- because this demands the existence of some sort of metaphysical reality like a soul to form these boundaries. The existence of a metaphysical soul breaks down the crisis of nihilism and removes the need for an absurdist philosophy. Now, perhaps one might say that the mumbo jumbo sci fi trick Evelyn discovered to link herself to other worlds only links her to worlds where some particular physical aspect of her consciousness exists, then you could argue that Evelyn has access to infinite universes with an Evelyn while not having access to infinite universes without an Evelyn. Removes the need for a metaphysical, but I personally don’t think it works. Personally, I think the flaw in the philosophy is that Jobu Tupaki with complete knowledge of the universe would not come to the logical conclusion that life has no meaning- rather I think she would come to the logical conclusion that life may or may not have meaning but the human capacity for reason is incapable of comprehending it. In other words, Jobu should really spend the movie preaching the categorical imperative and sleeping in self made swaddles.

As a side note: I think because this is such a personal film for Kwan I suspect this is why so many people I have seen struggle with the density of themes and try, unconvincingly, to boil it down to one thing. Familial bonds. Goofy feel good action movie. Marvel wannabe. The power of positive thinking. Etc. Kwan is trying to put his entire worldview into a film, so it’s a lot of things. Kung fu action film. juvenile absurdist comedy. sentimental family drama. Exploration of adult undiagnosed ADHD and the neurodivergent experience. Asian American experience, both first generation and second generation. The intellectual philosophical journey from Faith to Nihilism to Absurdism. Reflection on contemporarily relevant themes of identity. Philosophical implications of modern scientific theory. The movie is all of these things because all of these things are objects of Kwan’s life experience and personal musings to this point. Additionally, you see the same density of formal qualities in this movie with numerous techniques and styles conglomerated from other films and works of art I suspect the directors found influential- such as Kung Fu cinema, Adult Swim comedy shows, Wong Kar Wai films, Terrence Malick films, Stanley Kubrick films, etc. Thats a somewhat tangential point though and probably better served for a different audience than the r/philosophy sub.