The Dev­il All the Time

In a much-memed scene from the first sea­son of True Detec­tive, Matthew McConaughey’s belea­guered law­man Rust Cohle recalls that some­one once told him, ​“Time is a flat cir­cle. Every­thing we’ve ever done or will do, we’re gonna do over and over again.” A sim­i­lar the­sis is cen­tral to Don­ald Ray Pollock’s 2011 nov­el ​‘The Dev­il All the Time’: you can’t out­run fate, or the dev­il, no mat­ter how far you dri­ve or how much you pray.

In Anto­nio Cam­pos’ adap­ta­tion, a cast of dis­parate saints and sin­ners across post-World War Two Ohio find their lives inter­lock­ing through a series of odd twists and turns. Pollock’s nov­el sug­gests a sort of Mag­no­lia meets Flan­nery O’Connor prov­i­dence, jump­ing through time and towns fol­low­ing gun­slingers and mur­der­ers, preach­ers and crooked cops.

Cam­pos has valiant­ly tried to emu­late this, though for the sake of clar­i­ty it’s reduced to a lin­ear time­line and sub­plots are moved around in order to try and make things eas­i­er for view­ers unfa­mil­iar with the source mate­r­i­al. Cer­tain threads are omit­ted alto­geth­er while super­flu­ous ones are includ­ed, such as the local Sher­iff being mixed up with small-time organ­ised crime.

Much has been made of the film’s star-stud­ded ensem­ble: Bill Skars­gård, Hay­ley Ben­nett, Tom Hol­land, Robert Pat­tin­son, Sebas­t­ian Stan, Mia Wasikows­ka, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Har­ry Melling and Eliza Scanlen. Unfor­tu­nate­ly this makes it quite dif­fi­cult for any­one to real­ly do much with their lim­it­ed screen­time, though Pattinson’s turn as pae­dophile preach­er Pre­ston Tea­gardin is the obvi­ous highlight.

Dressed in a corn­flower blue suit and affect­ing a Tex­an drawl, he’s nev­er been more unnerv­ing. Tom Hol­land looks suit­ably sullen as the film’s de fac­to pro­tag­o­nist Arvin Rus­sell, a wel­come change from his pep­py Peter Park­er day job. The women fair less well, how­ev­er, exist­ing only to inevitably die in some gris­ly fash­ion or another.

Anoth­er jar­ring detail is the nar­ra­tion, pro­vid­ed by the book’s author. While an omni­scient nar­ra­tor does fea­ture in the source mate­r­i­al, here it feels heavy-hand­ed and dis­tract­ing, and ends up giv­ing the final film an unin­tend­ed com­ic ele­ment that isn’t quite in keep­ing with the death­ly dark hap­pen­ings on screen. This is a great shame, because Pollock’s nov­el is a mas­ter­work of mis­ery, weav­ing togeth­er the lives of fas­ci­nat­ing – if not dis­turb­ing – char­ac­ters to build to a tow­er­ing climax.

Cam­pos’ ver­sion ties itself in knots while attempt­ing to resolve all those plot lines with­in a two-hour run­time; it feels hur­ried and poor­ly-paced, with the sec­ond hour infi­nite­ly more enjoy­able than the first. All the pieces are there: great cast, great source mate­r­i­al, tal­ent behind the scenes. But even the best of plans go awry, and what should have been a medi­a­tion on whether the son is doomed to repeat the sins of the father ends up being a drea­ry slog through the Ohio mud.

Per­haps the sto­ry would have had more to breathe as a glossy lim­it­ed series. Cam­pos has form, hav­ing done won­der­ful things with The Sin­ner, but this is how fate would have it – an over­bur­dened tale of unremit­ting gloom that doesn’t allow us enough time with any char­ac­ter to feel upset when they meet their unfor­tu­nate demise.