“The Devil” Didn’t Try

By Rachel Levin, Staff Writer

★☆☆☆☆

“The Devil All The Time,” directed by Antonio Campos, was released directly to Netflix on Sept. 11 and is available only there. It is a deeply unsettling, and ultimately pointless movie. Right from the start it is quite difficult to watch, with violent imagery and emotionally upsetting situations, for a payoff that is nonexistent.

“The Devil All The Time” follows the lives of an assortment of caucasian characters living in an unpleasant section of Appalachia as they commit violent act after violent act until it's almost too much to stomach. The cast is stocked with familiar faces, from Tom Holland, who plays the main character, Arvin, to Robert Pattinson, who plays a rotten preacher with rotten intentions. However, these actors’ performances seem strangely out of place in such a dull, depressing film.

That is the true core of what makes this movie so hard to watch—it is a string of heinous crimes held together by the memory of better movies brought on by famous actors’ appearances. While the film presents itself as some sort of dark critique on religion and human nature, it never truly goes deeper than face value. What makes movies about pain so interesting is the contrast between the anger and the moments of joy wedged in between. There was not a single moment where the “The Devil All The Time” characters could let out a breath. They were never anything but angry and scared, predisposed for misery, giving the whole experience a discouraging hopelessness.

This is the vicious cycle “The Devil All The Time” offers its audience. A father comes home from the war, traumatized, only to raise a son who will grow up to fight in another war, this time traumatized before the fighting even starts. A devoutly christian mother who was failed by her faith raising a daughter whose faith was turned against her. An adequate parallel that leaves the audience with one thought: things can only get worse from here. That's a message that nobody needs right now.

Another thing nobody needs is another movie full of white, Christian characters. “The Devil All The Time” did not have a single character of color, even in the background, throughout its run. Granted, it does take place in rural Ohio, but it is still a bold statement to make that there is not a single non-white person living in any one place. It ends up seeming purposeful.

So perhaps, giving credit where credit is due, this was on purpose. The film was based on a book of the same name, written by Donald Ray Pollock. I have never read it, so maybe this portrayal of a truly sinister America was the point of the book, and that portrait could only be painted with entitled backcountry white people. Perhaps Campos was only trying to carry out that vision. 

This effort does lend the movie a bit of artistic vision, but the point still stands that there is no point. There might have been something well meaning to begin with, but in two hours and eighteen minutes, nothing came across.