A Filmmaker's Review: "The Devil All the Time" (Netflix, 2020)

“The Devil All the Time” (2020) is the much-anticipated film starring Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson with a supporting cast that includes the likes of Riley Keogh, Sebastian Stan, Mia Wasikowska and others. A Southern Gothic Romantic Horror is the best way to describe this film. It is something set in the times of the deteriorating Southern Places and the newer age of on-coming listlessness. Between World War Two and the Vietnam War, there are many other tragedies, each unfolding in different subplots that converge upon each other as the protagonist gets closer and closer to his mark and his mark gets closer and closer to his doom. As the story unravels, generations of family unfold into these tragedies, unable to cope and nowhere to turn, they prove in madness and terror that their God cannot save them now. As wives perish in cancers and murders, as men grow older and as husbands lament their wives to death, this film is gathering the conscience of everyone who ever saw the South disappear into roads and roads of emptiness and spewing it out into a violence against dishonesty. The grim and lifeless atmosphere beats in the heart of anyone who dares re-watch this modern classic of the Southern Gothic tale of love on the run, murder gone wrong and a resurrection attempt most foul.

The performances in this film are grim as they are intense and filled with intelligence on the subject of Southern Gothic living in times of absolute desperation. Tom Holland portrays an angered man, spurred on by hate, revenge and a vanishing land of beauty, despair and things that were once so promising to him - all gone. The cinematography that surrounds him is always so fluent that it contradicts his cause and makes his violence look picturesque and therefore, justified against the backdrop of nature and stretches of land that seem almost endless. Robert Pattinson, though seems the complete polar opposite. A character who is spurred on by his so-called ‘lovingness’ and ‘piety’ in which he seems to charm and persuade. The cinematography that surrounds him is harsh and unforgiving, spliced in several places and concerns the viewer. It is a brilliant mixture of cause vs. causation and the way it is revealed through the darkening physical atmospheres is pure brilliance on every level of entertainment.

The shoot-out scene is one of the very best scenes in the whole movie because it is one of the first scenes where both of these versions of people converge within the same space. It is not just the climactic point of the film where protagonist and antagonist meet alone, but also where the subplots seem to reach a point of great tension. The storytelling aspect of this film in which these narratives move in on each other is one of the most brilliant aspects of the film because it is constantly reflected in each and every aspect. The music, the atmosphere, the time of day etc. seems to reflect which narrative we’re looking at and which narrative is about to converge upon which character. As we follow the characters around their own space, they invade on spaces within others and from there, we acquire more tension. The instance in which the protagonist’s storyline intertwines with a pair of killers on the run meets up with the way in which a police officer gets into the house of a man with an English-made firearm. These two things seem dissimilar at first, but there is a correlation between the two as the story moves on.

All in all, the film is a perfect example of a well-made film meeting every single mark of what good art should be. But also it is clever in ways of telling the story to us by creating a list of characters we become so dependent on. The atmosphere is exciting and rural, different from most of the people who would have the time and space to watch the film and so, this difference makes it evermore wilderness-like in nature. It makes you believe that pretty much anyone could hide pretty much anywhere and never really get caught. Everyone is simply connected by guns and that is the greatest connection there is. It is brilliant. Purely brilliant.