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The film is primarily set in California, where Evelyn and Waymond operate a laundromat after moving from China to the United States. Chinese immigration has played a particularly large role in the history of California, which has the oldest and largest Chinese American population in the United States. In California, Evelyn and Waymond share their Chinese heritage with their local community by throwing a Chinese New Year party at their laundromat. Despite the warm relations they share with their community, Evelyn suggests that the IRS targets Chinese businesses, reflecting the tensions, mistrust, and discrimination that has frequently marked the experiences of Chinese immigrants in the United States.  

In Evelyn’s universe, notable settings include the laundromat owned by Evelyn and Waymond and the IRS office where they meet with Deirdre in order to sort out their tax paperwork. When Evelyn and Waymond first move to the United States, they celebrate their purchase of the laundromat, which they believe will be the vehicle for their “American Dream.” The youthful optimism and excitement shown in a flashback, however, has largely faded by the beginning of the story, when Evelyn thinks of the laundromat as a burden that requires constant attention and has prevented her from achieving her other dreams, such as being a singer, novelist, or masseuse. She and Waymond live directly above the laundromat, further skewing the balance between work and life. 

Similarly, the IRS office reflects the difficulties that the Wangs have navigating complex bureaucracy in English, which is not their first language. The IRS office is a serious space marked by rigidity and void of personality, though the sudden entrance of Alpha Waymond, and later, Jobu Tupaki, brings surprising chaos, sometimes playful and sometimes violent, to this otherwise strict and rules-based environment. As Evelyn and Jobu’s agents perform novel motions in order to activate their verse-jumping abilities, their strange actions, from singing opera to chewing used gum, offer a stark, comedic contrast to the orderly workplace.  

In addition to the various settings in Southern California, significant scenes in the film take place in a wide variety of alternative universes. When Alpha Waymond teaches Evelyn to verse-jump, transporting into the bodies of her alternative selves in other universes, she sees the various different paths that her life might have taken. In one universe, for example, Evelyn rejects Waymond and becomes a famous actress. In other universes, she works as a sign-twirler, a Chinese opera singer, and a maid at the very IRS office where Evelyn meets with Deirdre. Other universes, however, are even further removed from Evelyn’s own. She encounters a universe where biological life never developed, for example, and another where her colleague at a teppanyaki restaurant is revealed to be controlled by a raccoon in a manner comically echoing the film Ratatouille. In another absurd universe, human beings have evolved to have long, hot-dog-like fingers, and in this universe, her partner is Deirdre. The film’s shifting settings—from the mundane spaces of the IRS office and family laundromat to the chaotic expanses of the multiverse—mirror Evelyn’s internal journey, transforming ordinary environments into stages for existential discovery, generational reckoning, and personal empowerment. 

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