“The Devil All The Time” Netflix Movie Review by Brooke Daugherty
October 11, 2020 4:19 pm |
The Devil All the Time is a book by Donald Ray Pollock turned screenplay by Antonio and Paulo Campos. The film, streaming on Netflix, is narrated by Pollock and directed by Antonio Campos, is a drama. The story is about two towns and the lives interconnected by both over a twenty year period.
In the past, Bill Skarsgård plays Willard Russell, a religious man, deeply affected by WWII who meets a waitress (Haley Bennett) in Meade, OH. In the same restaurant, we meet Riley Keough as Sandy meets her future husband Carl Henderson, played by Jason Clarke. We see the next few years for both couples, including Sandy’s policeman brother, Lee (Sebastian Stan) and the Russell’s son Arvin. Rounding out the cast is Mia Wasikowska as Helen Hatton Laferty, Harry Melling as Roy Laferty, and Pokey LaFarge as Roy’s cousin Theodore.
In the more recent time, Arvin’s parents both passed away and he moved back to Coal Creek, West Virginia to live with his grandmother and uncle. Tom Holland plays a conflicted young adult Arvin in need of anger management classes. Robert Pattinson plays Reverend Preston Teagardin, a smooth talking, young pastor who takes over the congregation in Coal Creek, West Virginia. Eliza Scanlen also appears in this time period as Lenora Laferty, Arvin’s adopted “step sister.”
The plot seems it would be fairly straight forward with family drama and the like, but this film is rated R. The amount of violence paired with the drama is suffocating. The Devil All the Time has so much story, it should have been a 6-8 episode mini-series to give the viewer some time to breathe. An action movie has a moment of levity with a joke here and there, but this film does not let up. The only real light from the dark storyline is the performances of Holland and Pattinson, with honorable mention to Skarsgård, whose character begins the parade of death.
If you find yourself with a limited suspension of disbelief when it comes to non-Americans using American accents, the performances might not land. But if you don’t mind some exaggerated Southern accents with your dark, violent tales, The Devil All the Time won’t be a total waste of your time. I give it a middle of the road rating for the oppressing story that left me breathless for the wrong reasons.
PCL Rating: Taste It
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: FRESH 🍅
Tags: movie review, pop culture leftovers, Robert Pattinson, The Devil All The Time Netflix 2020, Tom Holland
Categorised in: Movie Reviews
This post was written by Leftover Brian
Comments are closed here.