The Devil All The Time review

THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME (2020) 

Director: Antonio Campos

Stars: Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgård, Haley 

Bennett 

Runtime: 138 min

The Devil All The Time is an ambitious and complex film which has divided critics as to whether the timeline, moving between various periods, is too confusing and whether the narrative becomes too disjointed to follow comfortably. I thought it was remarkably well-handled, producing a film of real depth that lingers in the mind long after viewing.

 

Though perhaps one of the reasons it lingers in the mind is the sheer unpleasantness of much on display. The Devil All The Time is a veritable redneck epic, packed to the rafters with crooked sheriffs, malignant preachers, violent religious obsessives, serial killers and pretty much everything else that might make you want to avoid ever living at the hillbilly end of West Virginia or Ohio.

 

The film spans two generations, opening as Willard (Skarsgård) returns from World War Two and closing in the mid-sixties with his son Arvin (Holland). Presented as it is you are continually reminded of the William Faulkner observation that the past isn't dead, or even the past. Sons and daughters find themselves constantly trapped by the actions of their parents: Arvin is shaped by childhood horrors while step-sister Lenora (Eliza Scanlen) suffers the consequences of trusting a preacher just as her mother Helen (Mia Wasikowski) did years before.

 

In an all-star cast Pattinson stands out as the abominable preacher who abuses poor Lenora, all syrupy vowels and self-regard with a most eccentric but no doubt authentic regional accent. He is only one of many religious crazies, preachers who molest children or pour live spiders over their heads, or sacrifice animals or... suffice to say praising the Lord in the backwoods attracts unusual practitioners. 

 

Also making their mark are Sebastian Stan as a haunted corrupt sheriff and Jason Clarke and Riley Keough as a pair of horrific peripatetic serial killers. On a musical note - and there is a bunch of great Americana on the soundtrack - Pokey LaFarge makes an impact with his singing as yet another iffy religious type.

 

But everything revolves around Tom Holland's Arvin, despite his absence from the story for extended lengths. He is the glue that ultimately ties together the disparate threads and he gives a naturalistic and sympathetic performance. A little patience is required to get there but everything eventually slots into place, teased along the way by the rich melancholy narration of Donald Ray Pollock, author of the 2011 novel. 

 

Tom Holland

The narration reinforces ideas of fate and destiny, often revealing the violent futures of characters well before they occur. But instead of this acting as a device to raise tension, the reveals function more as sad unavoidable predictions, as the downtrodden characters try but seem ever bound to fail to escape lives that with unshakeable inevitability keep dragging them back to past sins.

I saw someone describe this as Pulp Fiction meets White Lightnin’ and that's not too far off. Let the time-line confusion roll over you and you will be rewarded when it all comes together. But be warned: this may be a fascinating glimpse of a world we rarely see (think Winter's Bone), but that doesn't mean it's a place you'd want to spend too much time.