Director:
Antonio CamposCámara:
Lol CrawleyReparto:
Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgård, Sebastian Stan, Haley Bennett, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Mia Wasikowska, Harry Melling, Eliza Scanlen (más)Streaming (1)
Sinopsis(1)
Sinister characters converge around a young man (Tom Holland) devoted to protecting those he loves in this suspenseful, seductive Midwestern gothic tale. (Netflix)
Reseñas (9)
Quizás una maraña demasiado improbable de destinos jodidos, acompañada de una voz en off innecesariamente frecuente y literal. Ya hay varias conexiones importantes entre los destinos de la historia que se pueden adivinar, y la constante voz en off que lo explica todo priva al espectador de sus propias reflexiones. Las explicaciones literales de sentimientos de los personajes tienen cabida en un libro en el que no vemos las caras de los actores. Esto es además innecesario. Pero si aceptas esta narrativa demasiado cómoda y monótona, te espera un sólido drama con mucho sufrimiento, los feos frutos del fanatismo religioso, un uso ligeramente cínico de la relajada música de época (que evoca a los hermanos Coen) y excelentes actores. Especialmente Jason Clarke y Pattinson sobresalen aquí en el apoyo, atípico para ellos, de creaciones negativas. El personaje principal de Tom Holland, irónicamente, me pareció distante en la expresión, lo que no le achacaría a él como actor, sino al director. Tres estrellas y media.
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I don’t know why Americans always have the need to show everyone that Middle West sucks, that its people are stupid, their language unintelligible and moreover that in every village you can meet some kind of religious psychopath who is deprived in some way. To be a cop there must be some kind of punishment and you have to be really stupid to be able to live therewithout losing your marbles. Despite that, The Devil All the Time showing you the devil inside the local people has a good premise with quite a good atmosphere and overall it is quite an interesting movie. If only it wasn’t so long and forceful. From time to time I had a feeling that I’m about to faint regardless the atmosphere. The best part about this movie are the performances of the actors. They really had some fun with that gibberish.
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A tired, desperately chatty Southern epic with clunky direction, and questionable dramaturgy, but also some nice grim cinematography and solid actors who pull it above the level of mediocrity. Campos is about as much a director as I am a helicopter.
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Netflix hit the jackpot this time around, and after Extraction and The Platform, The Devil All the Time is the third best Netflix venture of the year. The Devil All the Time is a solid Southern Gothic period thriller set in Midwestern America, in a small town full of violence and corruption. The film is told in multiple storylines, with some of them being flashbacks, but they don't distract and it's presented very clearly, and I enjoyed the engaging narrator. The cast is perhaps the most interesting that has come out of a film this year, and the interesting thing is not so much the sound names as the choice of characters – Spider-Man, Batman, Pennywise and Winter Soldier, of course in order of who gave the best performance. There isn't a properly positive character in the film, they all commit evil and horrific acts and are usually punished accordingly. Though the film moves at a slower pace, the director doses it with intense scenes that grab the attention (the scene in the church and in the car are the highlights), and the final forty minutes are literally a showdown and very satisfying. A good film with raw atmosphere, great actors and a solid story. Story****, Action***, Humor>No, Violence***, Entertainment***, Music***, Visuals****, Atmosphere****, Suspense****. 8/10.
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Antonio Campos made a western-flavored, Deep South “fuck-up" thriller about the bad things that happen to bad people... and to Tom Holland. McCarthy’s poetic style is slightly undermined by the cynical narrator, who makes astute comments on the outcome of some of the situations, adding details necessary for understanding the humorous charm of the portrait as a whole. Pattinson really savors his role as an ingratiating, oversexed preacher and Jason Clarke was surprising as a porn photographer, but Holland was unusually less prominent, even though he has to deal with the biggest shitstorms and his moral dilemmas are probably the most convincing. Certainly one of the surprises of the year. Spider-Man vs. The Winter Soldier 2:0.
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A compelling story from the Midwest full of murderers, perverts, paedophiles and other scum, with normal and sane people popping in here and there. An intense, but slowly flowing tension that benefits mainly from first-class performances (Skarsgård, Pattinson), an impressive and unpredictable script and the fearlessness of the filmmakers to surprise the viewer at times, even shock a bit here and there. Without unnecessary exhibitions like Tarantino, but similarly cleverly structured, and engaging for both the ambitious viewer and the layman.
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One of the best films I've seen in recent times. And not only on Netflix. The “prologue" alone with Bill Skarsgård is so amazingly atmospheric and emotive, and it's actually just the start. It’s waiting for a much bigger acting concert which, in this mosaic with the mood of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is played by Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Jason Clarke and co. I like these types of stories and I like to let them to do whatever they want with me.
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Top-notch craftsmanship that skilfully handles the balance of the image accessibility, relying on a spatially distinctive framing and on dim lightning that irradiates a darkness similar to the one that can be found in the soul of the society it portrays. Antonio Campos really tries to imprint his specific signature on the visuals and stages the scenes with ingenuity and efficiency. The 1950s and 60s setting in an environment of misery and poverty, where the heroes often seek solace in prayer, looks very convincing and itself builds an atmosphere where the viewer is always ready for the ubiquitous evil. The period soundtrack also works well, it doesn’t stick out too much but completes the film’s aura, while also helping to tell a very complex story with many characters, whose fates must naturally cross paths, and actually do throughout. But even though the story is very interesting and quite rich in the individual conflicts, its development doesn’t have a very strong effect and at times it feels too mechanic and literal. There’s an omniscient narrator, who probably was meant to express a detached god’s perspective, but his role is exhausted soon after laying down the story and the characters. The story then shifts regularly between several main lines that are brought together in the final act, but, especially in the middle part, where the hero is finally established, it’s lacking a dominant narrative direction and impulse – it’s as if it was intentionally shuffling its feet on one spot so the viewer can absorb the ideas that have been sketched so far, but the problem in that sense is that the film is in fact too simple and interpretively bland to evoke those existential concepts. The cards are clearly laid in the middle, the sympathies must be directed at the main character, while the potentially ambiguous ones don’t have much room to affect the story (the again attractive Ms Keough), or lack a better portrayal (Sheriff Sebastian Stan), while the evil ones are downright bad. And even though I appreciate the straightforward questioning of the faith in God as a means to achieve inner peace, I think that for a greater catharsis, it lacked more coherent moral arguments that would provide less universal conflicts and dilemmas to the twists that often arise from the experiences and the beliefs of the characters. Despite all these weaknesses, The Devil All the Time is certainly effective as a jigsaw-puzzle full of interesting images and characters that may be lacking a deeper insight and humanity, even (with the exception of a couple of wisecracks the film doesn’t have any humour, it’s only bleak), but still has the praiseworthy mark of the atmospheric fade-out effects and with a period setting that is not only for effect, but to provide a logical sequence of events that makes sense and holds the attention of the viewer at a decent pace, probably with the exception of the quieter middle part. Next to all the dumb action movies and cloying romantic stories on Netflix, this detour into the redneck world stands out very nicely and, if anything, it encourages to read the source book, which will certainly fix the psychological and argumentative shortcomings of the movie. 70%
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This is one of the best things in the "Netflix original production" category in a while, no question about it. Unfortunately, I couldn't shake the feeling at the end that a narrative this ambitious and expansive deserved even stronger performances (I'm thinking especially of Tom Holland, who's not bad, but I just don't believe him) or a slightly more innovative formula. Overall, though, satisfaction prevailed and for the first time in a long time this is a film with a digestible voiceover.
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