A young man is devoted to protecting his loved ones in a town full of corruption and sinister characters.
The Devil All the Time is the type of film that leaves you feeling strange but not for the reasons you should. Antonio Campos, who directed the criminally underseen 2016 film Christine, has a venerable buffet of young stars to work with on this sprawling Southern Gothic which feels like a tour of terrors and despair. The characters who populate this multi-generational drama seem to fall into two categories, people being abused and tortured and those doing the abusing and torturing. It is a grimy cavalcade of unlikable characters with Tom Holland’s Arvin Russell fairing the best even though he is thoroughly damaged as well. The intertwining stories might read better on the page but on screen all the characters feel shortchanged. As such, each is only given scant time for audience to connect with their stories with varying effectiveness. The cast elevates the story’s failing by making the most of their limited screen time. Tom Holland does well with a subtle turn playing against type for those who only know him as his comic superhero it takes a minute to adjust to this performance, but he plays it well. Robert Pattinson’s role is limited but the showiest of the entire film, he and Sebastian Stan apparently decided to grow some girth for their roles, and he chews through his scenery with great aplomb. Bill Skarsgård also leave a solid impression even though he only appears in the 1st act. The remaining cast suffers a similar fate as they are given precious little time to shine, which many do, but the film never lets any of the characters breathe. This is the rare film where the 2 hour plus runtime seems woefully inadequate to service the story and characters. As a result, the audience is left with an oppressively cynical tone with all the characters kept at arm’s length for the better part of the film’s runtime.
