The Devil All the Time

Plot

Told over a period of 20 years over several generations in the states of West Virginia and Ohio.

Bill Skarsgård is sound as Willard, a WW2 Vet who returns home from the war, marries Charlotte and has a Son named Arvin.

I found the portrayal of a ‘God Fearing’ and sacrificial type Christian poorly written.

Tom Holland, as an adult Arvin, gets top billing despite not appearing until 45m into proceedings is the star of the movie. Even at times after he arrives – becomes almost ‘forgotten’ as the screenplay devotes time to alternate characters.

Jason Clarke and Riley Keough play couple Carl and Sandy, who spend the two decades hunting hitchhikers and murdering them. They are present in most of the timelines, and Sandy’s brother is revealed to be Lee, a Deputy Sheriff and ‘dirty cop’

Sebastian Stan plays the ‘dirty’ police officer Lee. He gets adequate screen-time in his scenes with a shady businessman, and also later in the film.

Robert Pattinson plays one of the foulest preachers seen on screen, belittling his ‘poor flock’ and raping underage girls.

With quite a lot of the cast members Brits (Holland, Pattinson and Dudley Dursey Harry Melling) giving convincing Southern accents.

There are just too many characters to keep up with at times, with attention given to antagonistic characters we have no empathy for.

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

The non-linear narrative is told in four distinct years; 1945, 1950, 1957 and 1967. The constant narration from the writer of the film, adapted from his own novel, does the film a disservice, becoming both an ego boost to the writer, and the exposition overload is done poorly.

There is too much skipping between characters at times, and it is too jarring. One such examples is the ‘main’ focus on Arvin and his ‘step sister’ Lenora, which then skips to either Sandy and Carl or Lee for upwards of 10-15 minutes of screen-time.

I somewhat understand why some of this needed to be included – as focus on Lee needed to show he was a dirty cop, and a dangerous man (which is why we don’t feel bad for him later in the film). While this may have worked in the context of a novel, it just failed in the context of a movie.

Lee should have been left out of the story all together, and this would have made a much better film. His dealings with Leeroy and BoBo add nothing. His discovery of Arvin in the final arc is written too conveniently too, and done poorly. Had the character not existed, Arvin would have buried his dog and that would have been the end of the movie.

Less is more!

There is some brutal violence at times, especially in the 1950 act where Melling’s preacher Roy tries to ‘resurrect’ his wife after murdering her.

Overall

With reviews that even the source material went too far was ‘too gratuitous’, I found this a struggle to get through. There is just so much heartbreak and sorrow and one death after another.

If you are a big fan of Holland, give this a go – he does a solid job, but I would not recommend this.

2/5