Adapted from the Donald Ray Pollock novel of the same name, The Devil All The Time arrives on Netflix with one of the year's most impressive ensembles in tow. Directed by Antonio Campos and led from the front by Tom Holland, is this a devil worth dancing with?
A young man is forced to protect his loved ones from the dangers of a small Southern town where corruption and sinister characters converge, while also processing his own personal trauma. Starring alongside Holland is Bill Skarsgard, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, Eliza Scanlen, Robert Pattison, Mia Wasikowska and Haley Bennett, with the screenplay adapted by Antonio and Paulo Campos.
The Devil All The Time is a very hard going film, a picture as unrelentingly bleak as it is excessively violent. A 138-minute descent into darkness with very little in the way of light, anybody who approaches cinema for escapism would perhaps do better looking elsewhere. But even for those who can stomach the gothic brutality, it becomes tiresome, threatening to consume it in its entirety as the bodies pile up. Antonio Campos is able to build a pervading atmosphere and tonal work that really benefits the mood of the piece but the violence is overkill and little of it lands viscerally.
What perhaps trips Devil over most of all is its screenplay - or rather, its narrative structure. 45 minutes pass before we arrive to any real narrative meat, a long time to spend building characters we don't ever feel close with or connected to. The slow, laborious start doesn't really pick up immediately into the second act either, leaving it to the third act to do most of the heavy lifting. Further hindered by incessant narration - an attempt to ground the sprawling, segmented narrative that experiences mixed success - Devil's slow-burn approach never lights the type of fire these films really need to leave any impact.
In a notable departure from the world-saving, web-slinging character he plays in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Holland shows a grittier side as a young man consumed by trauma. While it's difficult not to wish he was working with a stronger screenplay, Holland shoulders the dramatic weight well and proves his versatility as an actor, perhaps working best as a stepping stone for his next major role in Cherry. He compels us in the slower moments and anchors the story as the threads begin to meets during the last hour of play.
Robert Pattinson is another standout, delivering a chilling performance that helps explore the themes of power and religion that are central to the film's discussions. Bill Skarsgard is also deserving of plaudits for his wrought performance as a man so blinded by faith that the guidance he seeks is incomparably destructive. As a matter of fact, the cast is uniformly great across the board - but the women are all shockingly underused, and no one gets to explore their characters with a depth that would benefit the audience, which perhaps makes the sting of a missed opportunity more deeply, and disappointingly, felt.
The Devil All The Time is the type of film that audiences have turned their back on in recent years as they become more selective with their cinema visits, so a streaming service is probably the best place for such an inaccessible film to truly try and resonate with audiences again. The sheer volume of plot results in a dense picture but there's little depth to any of it, lacking the character work that would give it a heart or emotion to pierce through the overwhelming misery that relents, otherwise offsetting a picture boasting both solid direction and a strong cast.
Summary: Tone and atmosphere at the expensive of character and depth, The Devil All The Time is a bleak and dense feature salvaged by a strong lead performance from Tom Holland and a solid, if underused, supporting cast.