The Devil All The Time (2020, Campos)

Pretty major disappointment, unfortunately. Having freshly finished the (very good) book, I couldn't wait to see how Campos - who's proved himself a pretty solid filmmaker in the past - would tackle such a dark, uncompromising tale. However, his adaptation loses pretty much all of the book's savage bite, and while I appreciated that it generally stayed very faithful to its source material, it all too often felt like Campos was just blandly going through each story beat, with very little synthesis or nuance added to make me actually care about how all the narrative threats intersect and eventually collide.

There are some positives, though almost nothing about the film is a total triumph. The cinematography is nicely crisp and Campos gets some very nice shots, though it all looks a little too nice and pristine - this is a gnarly, scuzzy story and this should have been reflected in the film's aesthetic. Campos has a very promising, talented cast as his disposal, but somehow fails to properly use any of them. Holland and Scanlen were the standouts for me, both giving rather subtle and quietly devastating performances that brought some much needed humanity to this hollow film. Skarsgard, Bennett and Wasikowska do the absolute most they can with next to nothing to work with. Keough and especially Clarke were pretty disappointing, but again I lay all the blame at Campos' feet for completely undercutting that subplot, one of the novel's most striking and haunting. I couldn't have cared less about Stan and his subplot. I'm kind of going back and forth on Pattinson, who as usual is impressively committed and at times perfectly matches the sickening sliminess of his character in the novel, but in other times didn't entirely convince me. Another mixed bag element is the use of Pollock's narration - it's a very nice idea, and his voice has a wonderful gravitas, but at times it feels like it's doing too much of the narrative heavy lifting, and just reminded me how much better the novel was. 

The whole thing feels so damn choppy and underdeveloped. I occasionally had this problem with the novel, but to a much lesser extent thanks to Pollock's excellent prose. Here, it just makes everything feel careless and by-the-numbers, meaning that I ultimately finished it feeling that I hadn't really gotten anything out of it. Much of the novel's insight into a post-war world ravaged by corruption and violence is gone, though it occasionally makes its points on generational trauma pretty well, particularly in the genuinely moving and powerful final scene. At least it goes out on a high note. 5

A really solid-to-strong ensemble and an effective mood is kinda countered at every turn by the fact that the film just doesn't give us time to breathe. So much of the storylines feel pared down to the bone and beyond, much to the detriment of the rich tapestry of characters that Pollock gave us in his superb novel. It feels like there was a four-hour cut that was sliced to ribbons by a cut-happy producer; the constant back-and-forth chronologies work decently enough, but it also doesn't give us enough time with the characters before they're done away with.

And yeah, I'm gonna echo the Pattinson-as-MVP talk because his character didn't suffer for lack of great characterization; pretty much his entire role in the book is on-screen. But no one was bad in it; they just didn't have room to breathe.

EDIT: Also, I really have to give props to Tom Holland. First time that he's ever played a truly adult character (despite Arvin being a teenager), and he was surprisingly convincing with both the accent (even if I still think it was more Alabama than Ohio) and his presence.

I liked it a lot, but the masterpiece of a novel obviously deserved better.

None of the characters outside of Willard and Arvin are fleshed out enough for this to be truly satisfying. All of the different characters/stories are blended together decently enough, but some stuff that made perfect sense in the book just seems kind of random in the film.

But overall, I think it does a solid job of conveying the spirit of the novel. DRP's narration was pitch perfect, some great cinematography, and the score's kind of stuck with me too.

The cast is mostly good across the board (why was Mia Wasikowska in this for such a tiny role though? Stephen's four hour cut comment has to hold some weight)... outside of Sebastian Stan (awful) and Pattinson (hard to take seriously with that accent).

Was most impressed with Bill Skarsgård (who... maybe it was just in my head, but kind of seemed to be channeling Michael Shannon in some ways... and sort of channeling DRP's voice too), Jason Clarke (the only scummy character that felt truly scummy), and Tom Holland (despite some iffy mean mugging in one or two scenes). Shoutout to David Atkinson as Uncle Earskell too, who I thought was a strong presence without many lines.

non-skimped-out miniseries for THE HEAVENLY TABLE plz

Kinda disappointed. It was all over the place and would have worked so much better as a mini-series. The first 30 minutes or so had me really invested and Skarsgård is really good but then it starts to overload stuff and as Stephen said, you hardly get a chance to breathe. After a while, I kinda lost interest in the characters with so much going on even if the cast was committed except Stan (miscast imo) and as much as I like Pattinson, that DELUSIONS scene is so badly acted. Eliza Scalen is lovely and has a great screen presence, Harry Melling was amazing in all of his scenes and Tom Holland carried the movie well, which didn't surprise me given how great he was in The Impossible. I am so disappointed especially with the way they did Keough and Clarke (and Wasikowska too but I expected that) dirty. The book had so much depth in the whole Carl-Sandy storyline, they were terrifying, disgusting and you also felt for Sandy but here it felt so rushed that you get nothing from those two even if Keough did show some brilliance with whatever little she had. Still, it was watchable and I think I would've liked it better too had I not read the book.
Oh and that narration was really distracting.



I'll have to read Heavenly Table now.

~6.5/10

2nd disappointing version of a truly great book this year (Waiting For The Barbarians is the other) - this movie makes a pretty big mistake early on......when Willard and Charlotte court, have a baby, get a home....... it's clearly not 1952 .......but Kay Starr's "Wheel of Fortune" (used far better in "Let Him Have It" (1991)) from 1952 is playing.

Small thing but if you care that little about that one detail then I guess it's a bad sign and this movie lathers on unnecessary narration and time shifts (and leads you by the hand with quick flashback inserts!) that obscure the connections in the story rather than enhance them. It doesn't feel like the film's/book's title ..........instead it feels like just a bunch of shit that happened to rednecks.......only at the very end are the connections in place for us to do any piecing together at all.

There's very little sense of time passing, place and setting, fate or scope - of God and the Devil actually. Christine was a better film because it was a simpler one that allowed for a great lead performance.......here the performances are perfunctory because there are so many nuances to juggle (and lose) in the plot.

The "Devil" is in the details as the expression goes.........well Campos gets overwhelmed by them and how to present them to an audience too.

Agree with speeders - the book wants to be a miniseries, but this movie should've just focused on the Tom Holland stuff. I actually didn't love the book but there's no question it's better than this....

5/10. Campos who likes the static of fear, sudden perversions, the sense of something rotting or rotten, curious crumbs, etc.... He, surprisingly to me, swings and misses wholesale here. The absence of atmosphere in the scenes and feeling in the locations is its crucial fault, the pacing another, as the first 45min hop around to a ridiculous degree. Its patterns of behavior, the constant deaths and disease, it just feels lazily plated and plays like banal, obvious carves instead of an inevitable whole. Wasted 35mm too. Holland's scenes at least have a point, his conflict underdeveloped but understandable, and Pattinson as usual in his smaller roles is a welcome spike.

Mostly pointless and unengaging piece of cinematic misery. Lots of storylines and characters - but barely any interesting ones. And although in general I disagree with the notion that narration is a bad thing, here it felt really overused. As if no other way of filling up those spaces could be thought of. Weird feeling, having a movie read to you

I really liked this,Battinson was an absolute blast.

I haven't read the book but this was a total bore and completely underdeveloped in everyway. No one from the cast stood out (maybe Riley Keough?) but Pattinson's over-the-top performance was particularly awful.