The title to Pollack's novel, The Devil All the Time comes from the line "he was fighting the devil all the time" referring to struggling with ones demons, and perhaps the demons of the world around you. The film adaptation is a stew of violence, toxic masculinity, poisoned religion, poverty, and fear. It is an indictment of the American reality and it is brutal.
The Devil All the Time follows a number of violent men, and the women unfortunate enough to be wrapped up in their lives. Each brings their own culpability and horror to the stew of rage that is the American rural south of the mid-twentieth century. They are hypocrites, scared little boys who act out their fantasies of domination and power without ever actually obtaining any while hurting those around them. Sure we are to sympathize with Arvin Russell and his father Willard, both portrayed more as victims of the toxic culture, only defending themselves. But in reality their response is more violence.
Few of the other characters are redeemable at all. Robert Pattison's predatory preacher and Harry Melling's
delusional zealot play God with the women in their lives. Jason Clarke's perverted serial killer is completely irredeemable while Sebastian Stan's cop is power hungry and ruthless. Writer/director Compos rarely gives shades of grey, instead painting in his lush Americana dream, disgusting displays of violence and greed. The women characters that grace the film are two dimensional and voiceless. Riley Keough gets the closest to having agency at all yet she never is able to escape her twisted husband. It all adds up to a bleak, harsh critique of 20th century American culture where there is little for us to feel any redemption.
And in that The Devil All the Time looses something. It never quite felt like it was able to do much besides wallow in it's own misery. Arvin only lives through things through a series of lucky coincidences. Everyone else is just so evil, ready to exploit the culture which empowers and feeds their greed and anger. And in the end Arvin appears to be taken away by Jesus, to reflect on the life that brought him to this point and to hope for something better. The movie feels very on the nose, while it very much holds our hands through a series of terrors. But it never does the work to get underneath any of that. It is finger pointing more than reckoning.
But The Devil All the Time has its strengths. The performances are all strong and the film is shot in such as way as to contrast all the viciousness we are seeing with finding the beauty of the landscape. Compos isn't able to, or maybe he refuses to, connect that beauty to any of the interactions in the film. Even Arvin's loving relationship with his father is tainted in abuse. The Devil All the Time feels like Americana Von Trier, a hopeless yet visually stunning exploration of just how awful people are, without any real attempt to understand why beyond a cursory nod to cycles of violence without any chance of getting off that merry-go-round. I read the ending that Arvin doesn't make it but Compos leaves that for you to decide.
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