The Devil Half The Time

The Devil All The Time Review

Like many teenage (yikes I’m actually 20 lmao) girls I have certain actors (or actresses) that I gravitate towards, perhaps because of a big franchise, unexpectedly popular film or even the internet adopting them simultaneously as a tiny smol son and their ‘daddy’ (the wonders of twitter). And one of Netflix’s newest releases The Devil All The Time has 3 of these heartthrobs starring; Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson and Sebastian Stan. The wildcard was an unexpected but entirely welcome Dudley Dursley (Harry Melling). Hell, the film even treated us to Drew Starkey (Outer Banks), and Bill Skarsgård (IT, Hemlock Grove).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIzazUv2gtI

I’m going to try for no spoilers but just proceed with caution.

The film is pretty lengthy, it sat at the 2 hour and 18-minute mark and felt that long too. The narrative follows an examination of religion and abuse of power although the title itself seems a bit dark for the final product. We watch a set of characters from the end of the second world war until the mid 60’s in two rural Southern towns; Coals River in West Virginia and Knockemstiff in Ohio.

Willard Russell (Skarsgård) is a war veteran whose ‘prayer log’ is smothered in sacrificial blood in his efforts to save his wife from cancer through gaining Gods attention, his son Arvin (Holland) grows up violent in his own right, trying to reconcile with the darkness he inherited from his father. There are two disturbed preachers (Melling and Pattinson) who both have very different relationships with religion and power but abuse it all the same; and a couple who pick up hitchhikers to photograph and kill on their ‘roadtrips’ through the southern states of America.

The collective performances from the cast was insanely good. I’m not entirely sure how to explain it.

Our first introduction to Robert Pattinson (Reverend Preston Teagardin) was a mid-shot of him in Coal River’s church, brow gleaming with sweat and his outfit looking like that one suit Zac Efron wore in in High School Musical 3 (the pastel blue one, if you know YOU KNOW). He then proceeds to (obscenely) swipe two fingers into the food Arvin’s grandmother had bought for the community to share. He immediately made me super uncomfortable and eluded this smarmy attitude like a middle-aged man in a uni city nightclub on a Saturday night, which is a completely unwanted feeling to follow the introduction of a Preacher.

Melling (Roy Lafterty) was an unexpectedly pleasant surprise and after I got over the shock of seeing him in another film (and gotten over that god-damned Tik Tok ’how many are there?’ sound) I was impressed with his portrayal of a man clouded by his own delusions in his desperation for God’s presence and recognition.

Both Tom Holland (Arvin Russell) and Bill Skarsgård (Willard Russell) were wonderfully subtle in their performances which I was unexpectedly craving within the heated southern shouting and preaching. I’ve seen a review about how Hollands eyes were hugely influential in the success of his characters portrayal which, along with his body language and expressions, are the reason why his characterisation is so successful. Perhaps it’s because we are so conditioned to seeing him as Spiderman but there was something irredeemably light about Hollands performance which I found irritating but also tentatively optimistic for his character. While I personally craved an irredeemable and darker narrative, I also understand what Holland was able to do and appreciate the finer details he successfully grasped. I think this might be his best performance yet, and despite the all-star cast I was watching and waiting for him (and R-Patz but that’s a given).

Despite such rich storylines and just very good acting I still felt as though there was something missing from the darkness (sorry I know I keep mentioning it) of these characters. The watch is breath-taking but still somehow lacking something, too clean to reach that twisted thriller they set out to create. Pattinson’s performance was perhaps the closest they got to a truly perverse smarminess, his voice getting under my skin until I was urging the conflict between him and Holland’s character to come to fruition, but apart from that there was this undercurrent of unfulfilled promise.

I felt somehow lost in the narrative, stuck between plot and character progression unsure of what was being focussed on. I feel as though the book would be a closer analysis of how Willard (Skarsgård) and his experiences and actions reflected on Arvin (Holland) and the subtext between them but I haven’t read it yet so I couldn’t comment.

Based on the acting a 4.5 stars

All together though? Perhaps a 3.5

All images © Netflix, Inc. 2020