'The Devil All The Time (2020)' is an incredibly uneven experience. At times, it's atmospheric and compelling; at others, it's dull and undisciplined. Essentially, it follows a few different story strands featuring characters who eventually cross each other's paths in relatively intricate ways. It also jumps back and forth between a couple of time periods to provide backstories for some of its major players, focusing on their parents in order to give you a better understanding of what makes them tick. The picture deals with things such as faith, sin, delusion, fate and family, positing that violence always begets violence but sometimes can't be helped anyway. Occasionally, it's interesting and well-conceived, but it's just as often uninspired and clumsy. This is frustrating, to say the least. There's persistent narration (from the source novel's own author) that initially seems like a way to add flavour and condense the flick's lengthy set-up (seriously, it's about an hour long) but eventually evolves into a way for it to simply tell us what its characters are thinking. It isn't awful and can sometimes be rather atmospheric, but it feels somewhat intrusive and, frankly, unnecessary. Sometimes, it's almost like the movie is supplementing the narration rather than the other way around. Another issue is that the film feels as though it lacks a solid through-line. Even its individual stories seem like a series of isolated events until they suddenly start to come together towards its conclusion. It's in its final movement that the affair finds its most success, as its stories start to satisfyingly intertwine and a strong sense of foreboding creeps in. You're never quite sure how things are going to end up, which makes for a fairly tense finale. Overall, the film is a mixed bag. It's atmospheric, well-made and often enjoyable. It's also long, unfocused and relentlessly grim. It could have done with a bit of tightening up, to be honest. However, the further away you get from it, the more fondly you remember the experience. Perhaps that's primarily because it has such a solid third act. It leaves a stronger impression in retrospect than it does in the moment. In the end, it's a good movie that's dampened somewhat by its flaws. 6/10
Review of The Devil All the Time
