Our superhero is beset with problems. All superheroes are, but this woman more than most.

She lives in an apartment over a laundromat, which she owns. Her aging father lives with her and her husband. Her daughter has a gay partner and demands that her girlfriend be acknowledged as such. And her sweet funny husband keeps trying to serve her with divorce papers just to get her attention.

On top of everything, she is being audited. The IRS officer is neither kind nor understanding, but, to be fair, the tax papers are in great disarray. Some of them are receipts for expenses involved with giving music lessons, even though she is not a music teacher.

“My wife sometimes gets hobbies mixed up with work,” her husband explains.

Time seems to be running out for this woman. She is given till the end of the day to file her taxes properly. At that time, she must also be ready to throw a birthday party for her father.

A set of enigmatic instructions that begins “Put your shoes on the wrong feet,” appears on the back of the divorce papers she holds in her hands.

Suddenly, her crazy world gets crazier. Her husband begins talking to her in a different, more confident voice. He is no longer her ineffectual spouse, but a leader on some other universe, where he has mad skills, battling bad guys with a fanny pack among them.

It turns out that our heroine exists across several universes, the same person who made different life choices. In one world, we learn that not only would she have been better off if she had chosen not to disobey her father and marry her husband, but that he would have been better off had he chosen not to marry her.

She has been selected as the one who can save all the universes from a malevolent force, even while she struggles mightily with relationships and finances in her current one.

Why her? The answer is not that she’s good at anything – but that she’s so bad at everything. Just when you think she may finally have an honest discussion with her daughter, she blurts out, “You need to eat healthier. You’re too fat.”

Everything Everywhere All the Time is outrageous, comical, unbelievable and hard to follow. In fact, you’re probably better off if you don’t try all that hard.

Anyone who has ever tried to do too much at one time will find themselves rooting for the unlikely heroine. Everyone else can kick back and enjoy the surreal effects, the cornball humor, and the improbable martial arts.

Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang; Ke Huy Quan is Waymond Wang; Stephanie Hsu is Eleanor, and Jamie Lee Curtis is the IRS agent you hope you’ll never meet.

Now in theaters, Everything Everywhere All At Once was written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes. Rated R.