In many ways The Devil All The Time is tailor-made for me, featuring many actors and elements that I love in my films. Actors like Robert Pattinson, Douglas Hodge, Jason Clarke and Sebastian Stan, along with many actors whom I’ve enjoyed the work of greatly and have thought needed more roles, such as Bill Skarsgard, Haley Bennet and in particular, Riley Keough. The film is a southern gothic tale drenched in violence and misery, with a vague philosophy about it. Such a description could be used for many of my favourite films. However... something here is amiss and I don’t exactly know if it’s clear. The film follows multiple different stories and characters, all of a murderous and sinister life in backwoods southern towns, as they repeatedly by chance cross paths with one another. Not to get ahead of myself, but I do believe the chief reason that the film doesn’t really work is that these stories never quite feel like a whole.

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The film comes from Christine and Simon Killer director, Antonio Campos, a rather brilliant new director whose previous films have all shown a near masterful handle on tone, especially in regards to violence. Violence may just be the key core of this film and yet that masterful handling of tone seems to have vanished. The film is pulp and trashy, but feels like it’s got an awful lot more to say than it actually does, leading to a quality of philosophy that becomes a touch infuriating. I have not read the novel that the film is based on and so cannot comment in comparison; however, the general plotting and characters, I feel, would be improved by an overall gain in subtlety. The film is adapted by Campos himself, along with his brother Paulo Campos, from the 2011 novel of the same name, written by Donald Ray Pollock. Pollock actually narrates the film, with a stoic and gruff voice that leads us through the story never elevating its dread and woe. The film’s use of music does simultaneously add to this woe, whilst also punctuating certain elements of nostalgia and comedy about the piece. The original score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurrians is superb, but the use of songs is often very subtly purposeful and ultimately adds to a non-blatant texturing of the film’s period - very refreshing amongst current period films. There are flourishes of better Campos films, brought about by Sofia Subercaseaux’s editing, with brief flashes correlating to other plots that just about make the film feel whole, but overall they do nothing once you step back from things and take stock. The film is shot in marvellous 35mm giving it the visceral grit that the photography needs. The film certainly looks mighty fine throughout, if I were to use the parlance of the characters.

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The greatest asset of the film, as the marketing team clearly knows, is its glorious cast of great talent. I’ll give brief comment to each of these performances now. Starting with Bill Skarsgard and Haley Bennett who take us into the film with a brief prologue of fashions showing the tragic childhood of Tom Holland’s character, who will lead us through the majority of the second half of the film. Both set you up for a very different film than the one that we’re going to get, with a heart and realism that feels out of place now that I have seen the whole film. It’s not that there isn’t heart and realism in the rest of the film, just that these two elements are swamped mostly by trashier elements. 

Much has already been made about Robert Pattinson’s turn in the film as a soft voiced devilish preacher and I have to say that it’s no surprise that Pattinson turns in another splendid performance. In a film filled with so many fleeting plots and characters, Pattinson was the only one that I wanted to spend more time with. The central plot - or at least the most recurrent - is that of Riley Keough and Jason Clarke as a murderous couple in the vein of Badlands or Natural Born Killers. Clarke is pure perverted evil and is the most unsettling piece in the puzzle of the film. Keough plays the conflicted Sandy wonderfully, but I do feel the script fails her and doesn’t really give her the big scene or the moment that the character deserves. The lack of such a scene similarly has no purpose, much like many of the other elements to the film’s plotting. 

Sebastian Stan stars as Sheriff Lee Bodecker, offering some dark comedic relief in a role originally cast with his Captain America co-star Chris Evans. I’m not one to speculate on what Evans - a very accomplished actor - would have done with the part, but I do feel that overall Stan fits the overall film better. It’s not necessarily that Tom Holland in the pseudo-lead role is a weak link here, it just seems that he can’t shrug off the Spider-Man about him and hence the character has a lovely naivety about him, but none of the brutality that the role needs. Or rather, no believable brutality - Holland does make attempts throughout often. Such an ensemble should technically come together and make a film of great worth no matter what the rest entails, and yes the writing and this cast do make the film naturally watchable and not dull in the slightest, but ultimately the film does wain in many parts and fails to have an urgency or a through line (narrative or conceptual) that makes the film mesh. Hence, no matter the ensemble, the overall product finds itself lacking.
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There are a few choice times where the script twists and then returns to previous moments, taking full advantage of the non-linear aspect of the screenplay. These moments are very welcome and make use of the film’s structure, but they are unfortunately fleeting. There are many subtle references, and many not so subtle references to the Vietnam war occurring throughout most of the film and one could make the leap that the amount of violence in the film and the nature of its pointlessness and sheer chance is a commentary upon the war. However, this violence always comes in addition at the end of every tale and with every story ending the same way, it ultimately leads to a lack of surprise and a major predictability that hung over the film like an unfortunate smell.

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A very watchable 5/10. Not in the least bit dull, just lacking an overall conception that leads its stray pieces coming to a whole. Quite simply a film that I don’t think I’ll find myself returning to, but not one that I regret watching at all.

P.S. If I were to describe the film I would say that it feels like a film that the Coen brothers worked on for years and years, but eventually gave up on, only for another director to come along and make the film, with a slight air of Coen remaining about it. For some this is a nonsense analogy, but for myself and possibly others, it may just be the most perfect way to describe the film.

-Thomas Carruthers