“The Devil All the Time” fails to captivate
You can feel the love writer- director Antonio Campos has for Donald Ray Pollock’s 2011 novel “The Devil All the Time” flowing through every vein, captured in every frame of his new adaptation.
Debuting on Netflix, the film tells Pollock’s tale — set largely in his unincorporated hometown of Knockemstiff, in the southcentral part of Ohio — of two generations of folks affected by wars and religion.
The movie boasts a big, notable cast, with Tom Holland (“SpiderMan: Far From Home”) starring and Robert Pattinson (“Twilight,” “Tenet”) in one of several key supporting roles.
It even gets a bit of flavor by having Pollock himself serve as the intermittently used narrator.
Despite all it has going for it, however, the Southern Gothicflavored slice of noir never manages to hook the viewer.
Co- written by Campos’ older brother Paulo, “The Devil All the Time” has the kind of story structure and rhythm that tend to work better on the page than on the screen. Too often, the film feels episodic instead of the complex interwoven tale you hope it will become, as full of flavor as it often is.
“Four hundred or so people lived in Knockemstiff in 1957,” Pollock’s narration informs us early on, “nearly all of them connected by blood through one Godforsaken calamity or another, be it lust or necessity or just plain ignorance.”
Although that’s when we meet Willard Russell ( Bill Skarsgard) and his 9- year- old son, Arvin
( Michael Banks Repeta), the first episode, if you will, revolves around Willard years earlier. He is returning home after serving overseas in World War II, with psychologically affecting wartime experiences having included encountering a crucified Marine on the field of battle.
Willard meets and marries waitress Charlotte ( Haley Bennett), and they have Arvin. When tragedy befalls the family, Arvin, unlike his father, makes a hard turn away from religion.
Now a young man, Arvin ( Holland), even though he’s grown up — in Coal Creek, W. Va., several hours away from Knockemstiff by car — is with another person orphaned years earlier, Lenora ( Eliza Scanlen), who makes church a big part of her life. ( Campos crafts a wonderful shot
framed by the doorway of the church illustrating how Lenora is drawn to religion while Arvin is intent on keeping his distance.)
And as it did a generation earlier, the possibility of being drafted into the military to fight in a war — this time in Vietnam — looms large for Arvin and other men his age.
One thing his father did pass on to Arvin was a compulsion to teach bad people a hard, painful lesson. Give Lenora a hard time, and a young man soon is to encounter Arvin’s fists — or worse.
Thus, you wonder what is in store for the slick- talking, goodlooking new preacher at the church, Reverend Teagardin ( Pattinson), who takes an immediate interest in the instantly captivated Lenora.
Although it will be a while before they encounter Arvin, we also spend time with married couple Carl ( Jason Clarke) and Sandy ( Riley Keough). They have, shall we say, an interesting little hobby involving the picking up of young male hitchhikers. We won’t say more than to tell you the couple refers to these targets as “models.”
Lastly, there’s Sandy’s corrupt sheriff brother, Lee ( Sebastian Stan of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), who’d encountered Arvin during a particularly dark day in his childhood. Lee is desperate to hold onto his power, but being beholden to criminals is making that increasingly difficult.
The acting in “The Devil All the Time” is generally strong, even if Holland brings a bit too much of Peter Parker’s aww- shucks vibe to Arvin. Still, Holland has given
Tom Holland has a supporting role in “The Devil All the Time.”
us another accessible character here.
While Pattinson is reasonably interesting in his scenes, it is those featuring Clarke (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” “Terminator: Genisys”) and Keough (“The Girlfriend Experience,” “Logan Lucky”) that truly crackle. Between their performances and what their characters are doing, you wish theirs was a bigger component of the film.
Instead, Campos (” Christine”) — from the screenwriting process with his brother to the editing process with his wife, Sofia Subercaseux — gives us a little of a lot. By the time Arvin has had his last of several big confrontations with other key characters, it doesn’t feel as though it is something meaningful to which the director has been building.
Relatedly, Arvin doesn’t have much of a character arc in “The Devil All the Time.” He seems to be largely the same person at the end he’s been the whole time — or at last since a monumentally bad day when he was a kid.
Considering its strong cast, performances, intriguing setting and uneasy moodiness, “The Devil All the Time” has something to offer, especially if you’re already a Netflix subscriber.
However, given its shortcomings — and longer- than- average runtime — this one’s still a bit of devil’s bargain.