Never would I have expected a Southern, gothic, religious, thriller that's as bleak as all hell starring your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man to be so intriguing but here we are. Antonio Campos' The Devil All the Time is an incredibly compelling and violent drama that has maybe one of the best-assembled casts of the entire year. Every single performance throughout this film is just immaculate and while they definitely carry the entire film, it is not without its own merits in writing and direction. Based on the novel of the same name by Donald Ray Pollock, this story is an excellently interesting one that makes it clear why it was adapted for the cinema. Although I had issues with the treatment of many of its characters and an annoyance towards the narration, there are so many more good elements in this movie that are hard to ignore and they truly help to make this dark thriller one of the most shocking of the year.
Arvin Russell (Tom Holland) was born and raised in the South with his religiously aggressive father Willard (Bill Skarsgård) and mother Charlotte (Haley Bennett). Carl (Jason Clarke) and Sandy Henderson (Riley Keough) are a criminal couple struggling to hide their secrets from Sandy's police brother Lee (Sebastian Stan). When this cast of characters have encounters with the new town preacher named Preston Teagardin (Robert Pattinson), their paths all begin to cross in the most violent and unexpected ways. This script, written by Antonio and Paulo Campos, is so unabashedly graphic in nature in ways that I was never expecting. While I knew this film was an R-rated, intense drama, I never would have thought that it could have reached levels such as it did. The script features some amazingly intriguing dialogue and character relationships that definitely enhanced the story. Very rarely does an adapted film make me want to read the original novel but Campos was able to achieve just that. I also loved Campos' direction in regards to the tone of this story. Very muted and very personality-centric dramas like this always make for an interesting case study and I loved the direction that Campos took this. Although the runtime was a bit long, it never felt like 2 hours and 18 minutes because his pacing of this narrative was incredibly smooth. The atmosphere of this film is remarkable and from the very first scene, I was drawn into this Southern world like nothing else. My main attraction when going into The Devil All the Time was the focus on religion throughout and how it can affect people. This was obviously the main theme of the entire movie but being able to see the insane lengths that people would go to and the horrible things that they would do to justify their faith was so interesting. While it is a bit exaggerated for dramatic effect, I think that it was explored very well by Antonio and Paulo Campos. However, I did still have some issues with the writing and certain creative choices that, in a way, halted this film from reaching a potentially greater height.
It is a massive tossup whether or not narration in a film can enhance the cinematic qualities of a certain story. While it is very often used in comedic ways, I do not think it fit the tone of this particular story at all. Pollock, the actual author of the book, narrates many of this film's scenes and lays out to the audience what is happening and what the characters are thinking about at that moment. I thought this was a very lazy choice to include throughout the film because I get very annoyed when a filmmaker thinks they need to hold the audience's hand. I do not like being told what to think when it comes to filmmaking, which is the beauty of it all, and the narration quickly became tiring. I also had an issue with how shallow many of this film's characters are. Personalities like Arvin and Preston were developed enough to establish a great protagonist/antagonist dynamic but the rest of the characters all felt like they were filler. Not nearly enough depth was shown in this movie towards its supporting characters to make me care about their subplots and it is honestly just a shame with how much talent they had built up here (i.e. Mia Wasikowska, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, and Haley Bennett). Although this film itself was ruthlessly vicious enough to keep my attention, I can only imagine how dark and twisted the novel can get and how much more interesting the characters become.
Regardless of how underdeveloped a lot of these subplots and their supporting characters were, the performances from this entire cast astounded me. Holland, Pattinson, Skarsgård, and Eliza Scanlen were all just breathtaking in their roles and even though the rest of the supporting cast brilliantly held their own too, these were just some of the standouts. Particularly Pattinson and Holland. Robert Pattinson, as it may come as a shock to no one, is one of my absolute favorite working actors right now and his ability to entirely dissolve into his roles is so impressive. He completely nails the unsettling, Southern preacher vibe and I was just taken aback by his presence in this story. Holland as the lead is also fantastic and I'm really glad that he is starting to actually display his talents as a dramatic performer. The Devil All the Time is his first sincere, dramatic role since 2017's Pilgrimage and while I think is a fine actor, it is obvious that he is still trying his best to break out of his more comedic, naive persona that he has grown into for Disney. I really can not wait for him to blow moviegoers away one day with an actually mesmerizing performance and I'm glad that this film could be a solid stepping stone towards that.
The Devil All the Time is a solid thriller that capitalizes on its strengths to definitely make it worth a watch. I can not attest to how faithful it remains to the original novel and while I had problems with the way many of its characters were handled, I was still blown away by the magnitude of storytelling that Campos achieves. This story was a nice change of pace from the much happier and more sterilized films I have been watching recently and I thoroughly enjoyed it as a violent, Southern-set drama. And if there's one thing that we need more of, it's Tom Holland saying "fuck."
My Rating: ★★★½
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