The Devil All the Time Movie Review

The Devil All the Time (2020)

Watch The Devil All the Time on Netflix
Written by: Antonio Campos & Paulo Campos (screenplay by), Donald Ray Pollock (based on the novel by)
Directed by: Antonio Campos
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Haley Bennett, Riley Keough, Sebastian Stan, Mia Wasikowska, Jason Clarke, Eliza Scanlen
Rated: R
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Plot
In a corrupt backwoods town, a young man surrounded by tragedy attempts to protect his half sister from a predator as a serial killer also preys on the town.

Verdict
This is difficult to describe as the story is all over the place at the start. I wasn't sure where it was going, but by the end all the pieces come together. There's just a lot of runway until we get into the story, not that it's bad. Everyone in the movie is either a victim or a generator of tragedy. It's a depressing tale that becomes more tragic as it progresses. Nobody ends up better. This is a movie that makes you feel worse when you're already down. It's a depressing tale about people tangentially related in a small town.
It depends.

Review
This creates a nice world with a narrator telling us about a small town and the people in it, but the story is back and forth. We start with a child and then skip back in time to when his father met his mother. This happens at least a couple times with characters. It worked well when it provided a sense of foreboding, but it happens too much and then needlessly complicates the story. What it this about?

All tragedy, all the time.

We see different families grow up. This isn't far from being a vignette set in a small town with a theme of life,  death, and religion in a small town. I like the mood, but I wasn't sure if the story was the dad or son. The narrator was fun at first but becomes grating when he doesn't provide usable information, just talk.

Tom Holland plays Arvin.

Robert Pattinson plays a preacher, and he's fun to watch in this despite how terrible his character is. The accent is particularly something to enjoy. I like that Pattinson picks varied roles, both lead and supporting, and almost always odd characters. Regardless of the movie, his performance frequently overshadows everyone else. Good Time is a solid movie with a good performance from Pattinson.
Pattinson is a corrupt preacher that preys on vulnerability. He took advantage of Lenora, Arvin's cousin, and others.

Robert Pattinson plays the corrupt preacher.

Tom Holland plays Arvin, who we eventually realize is the main character. As he states, there are a lot of bad people in town. The preacher is what starts Arvin's plot, but the backstory with his dad is important in shaping who Arvin becomes. Arvin's confrontation with the preacher is the best part of the movie. The story is all over the place, but it comes together at the end. All the pieces had a reason, more or less. It's just long on the prelude, but it gets better the farther you go. I haven't gotten into the serial killer, because it's just a weird thing. That subplot gets too much time as is, but that story plays into Arvin's story in two different ways.

This reminds me of The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), just not as tight of a story and lacking the commentary about sins of parents passed down to the kids. Pines does a bit of a flip in plot from father to son, becoming very different in tone. Both movies explore the influence of parents and childhood.