Movie Review - The Devil All the Time

Director: Antonio Campos

Genre: Drama/ Thriller/ Crime

Runtime: 138 minutes

Year: 2020

Starring: Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Jason Clarke, Haley Bennett, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Sebastian Stan, Mia Wasikowska, Eliza Scanlon

Description: Sinister characters converge around a young man (Tom Holland) devoted to protecting those he loves in a postwar backwoods town teeming with corruption and brutality.

Review: “Do not condemn anyone, for we are all sinners”. In “The Devil All the Time”, evil lurks everywhere and in everyone. For most people, plagued by their human powerlessness, there is no escape. Nevertheless, their faith and trust in the Lord often remains as strong as ever, if only to be able to cleanse themselves of the necessary sins. Director Antonio Campos explores the good, the evil and everything in between.

Campos takes us to the remote countryside of Ohio and West Virginia, where people live in strictly Christian hamlets, or rather snake pits full of sinners, weaklings and religious extremists. In these dark surroundings Arvin Russell grows up as a man of good will, but poverty and violence also create some dark sides. His story is woven in and apart from that of his father, a tormented war veteran who only at an older age throws himself full of devotion to the Lord, a wandering serial killing couple that targets male hitchhikers, corrupt sheriff Lee Bodecker and a new pastor.

Campos knows how to tell a lot with only a few images. Effective to move the story forward, but it sometimes lacks tension. Still, this doesn’t do much harm to the film overall. The film adaptation of the literary novel by Donald Ray Pollock (who narrates the story) is very successful. Campos’ most important blessings are the beautifully shot images and atmospheric mish. And although not every character has been worked out in the same way, the strong ensemble cast effortlessly lifts the film to a higher level.

Tom Holland impresses as the skeptical young Arvin, who does everything he can to protect his loved ones and doesn’t hold back. We have not seen him in such a role before. Robert Pattinson, who plays the pastor Preston Teagardin, especially makes an impact. In recent years he has established himself as a character actor, and always manages to catch our eye. One of the strongest scenes of the film features both Holland and Pattinson. Other performances by Haley Bennett, Jason Clarke and Bill Skarsgård are also worth mentioning.

“The Devil All the Time” is gruesome, gloomy, not very hopeful, sometimes somewhat uncomfortable, but above all intriguing. This film is probably not for everyone, yet it would be a shame to not give it a chance. A true Netflix gem.

Rating: 4 / 5