Netflix's The Devil All the Time Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out Rarely is a group of A-list actors so willing to be vicious like the ensemble in The Devil All the Time. Set between two secluded towns -- the aptly named Knockemstiff, Ohio, and Coal Creek, West Virginia -- Antonio Campos’ film (his fifth feature on a string of critically praised indies) spins a yarn about zealotry during the late 1950’s. Adapted from Donald Ray Pollock’s novel of the same title, a wry omniscient narrator (Pollock, himself) strings together the serendipitous The Devil All the Time. But amid the death and the poverty presented on screen, his matter of fact delivery often belies the film’s cruel irony. The non-linear narrative, which explores the violent vestiges of religious iconography, finds Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgård) on the Solomon Islands during World War II. It’s here, he discovers a bloodied, fly-infested serviceman crucified. The image changes the once godly soldier to religiously apathetic, but more importantly, makes apparent how closely brutality and sacrifice — exemplified through the image of Jesus tortured on the cross — align. When Willard returns from the war, he meets the love of his life Charlotte (Haley Bennett). Their courtship, which witnesses Willard’s non-secular revival, twirls another thread: Faith unhealthily filling the hole that loss leaves. Because after the pair marry, they produce a son named Arvin, only to have a tragedy befall them. To avoid the inevitable, Willard resorts to God, and with his son Arvin fervently prays for divine intervention. His situation becomes so bleak he takes an unthinkable action, which results in a haunting animal death. Skarsgård is unflinching in his ferocity, and his Appalachian accent suggests a man never unwound. He sets the tone early for a film whose most joyful moment is a young Arvin citing his father beating two poachers to a bloody pulp as his happiest memory with his dad. [ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://ift.tt/3mnGjBt] Campos loves intertwining bliss with blood. For instance, in the same diner where Willard met Charlotte, Carl Henderson (Jason Clarke) encounters Sandy (Riley Keough). The pair form a serial killer duo that slays young hitchhikers by Carl offering Sandy for sex and then taking their picture, a memento, at their peak of fear. For Carl, murder is the only way for him to feel love, not just for Sandy, but God, too. The Devil All the Time never wavers in exploring the manifestation of extremism. Upon Willard’s return to Knockemstiff, he encounters the revivalist preacher Roy Laferty (Harry Melling) who comes to marry a local girl Helen (Mia Wasikowska). She’s taken by his resolute faith, one where he pours spiders upon his face to prove the lord’s healing powers. The Devil All the Time is an unhurried dirge, and the three opening arcs produce a distressing first act, one where death is always lurking around the bend. As the film’s narrator explains, every person living in these backroads connect by “lust, necessity, or just plain ignorance.” The ignorance, or the incomprehensible indifference of God, spins this world. In fact, unanswered prayers lead nearly every character to madness because they exist in an inflection point: where treatments for most diseases were still undiscovered and two World Wars mercilessly wiped out large populations, religion served as the only recourse. Once more, their economic station — the hard lives they live — is evident in every shack’s cracking paint. The Devil All the Time is also a multigenerational tale, which asks a teenage Arvin (Tom Holland) and Lenora (Eliza Scanlen) to reckon with the ghosts of their parents’ past. But not everything works in the final two acts. For example, a sloven preacher fresh out of Bible college, Preston Teagardin (Robert Pattinson), arrives in Coal Creek. While other performers play into the gritty milieu, the screen’s next Batman relies on camp. Pattinson operates in a different movie than the other actors, but he’s probably where the film should be with regards to the narrative’s cruelly ironic tone. The drama’s final act, which morphs into a thriller, sees Arvin employing his father’s vengeful tactics. This is the most violent you’ll see Tom Holland, especially when he beats a bully of Lenora’s with a wrench. But the pieces don’t all fall into place, such as the subplot of Sebastian Stan as a crooked cop. Even when the pieces feel as incongruous as God’s ways, the level of commitment from this heavily English cast, makes it impossible to avert our eyes from the horrors of their secluded existence. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-devil-all-the-time&captions=true"]

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