The Devil All the Time

## Gallery

**The Devil All the Time** is a 2020 American psychological crime thriller film directed by Antonio Campos. It is based on the novel of the same name by Donald Ray Pollock. Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, the movie follows several characters whose stories weave together during the period from the end of World War II to the 1960s. The movie stars Tom Holland as Arvin Russell.

## Plot

Marine Willard Russell, who was stationed in the Solomon Islands during the Second World War and fought against the Japanese there, returns to the United States to visit his family in Coal Creek, West Virginia. During the war, he had a traumatic experience when he killed a comrade crucified by the Japanese with a mercy killing. On a stopover in Meade, Ohio, he meets the waitress Charlotte in a bistro, while at the same time the criminal Carl Henderson makes the acquaintance of Charlotte's colleague Sandy.

In Coal Creek, Willard's mother wants to set him up with the orphan Helen Hatton, but Willard returns to Meade, marries Charlotte, moves into a house with her in the village of Knockemstiff near Meade and has a son with her, Arvin. Helen, on the other hand, marries the fanatical Christian preacher Roy Laferty, with whom she soon has a daughter, Lenora. Some time later, Roy increasingly loses his grip on reality due to a spider bite. On a walk in the woods, he deliberately murders his wife with a screwdriver, believing that he has the ability to bring her back to life with his God-given power to resurrect the dead. When he realizes that he is unable to do this, he flees with his disabled brother Theodore. However, he soon decides to return to Coal Creek to Lenora, who has been left with the Russells by her mother. On the way there, he is picked up by Carl and Sandy Henderson, who have now become serial killers. When Roy refuses to sleep with Sandy and to be photographed by Carl, the latter shoots him dead.

In 1957, Charlotte Russell is diagnosed with cancer. Willard, who has an authoritarian relationship with his son, urges Arvin to pray sacrificially for his mother. When this does not help, Willard sacrifices Arvin's beloved family dog so that God will spare his wife. He places the dog's body on a rustic cross he had erected in the woods behind his house. Nevertheless, Charlotte dies shortly afterwards; Willard takes his own life on the same day as the funeral. Arvin is picked up by Officer Lee Bodecker and later taken to his grandmother Emma and her brother Earskell in Coal Creek, where he grows up together Lenora whom Emma had adopted as a granddaughter.

In 1965, Earskell gives Arvin his father's Luger pistol as a birthday present. The parish of Coal Creek gets a new priest, Preston Teagardin. However, he has less the good of the parish in mind than his own desires. He seduces Lenora, who is still grieving for her mother, under the guise of opening up to God. When she becomes pregnant, he denies that the child is his and advises her to have an abortion. In her despair, Lenora wants to kill herself, but she abandons her plan at the last second. Trying to remove the noose, she falls off the bucket she is standing on and hangs herself in the family barn. Teagardin refuses to pray for the supposed suicide. Arvin later learns from a policeman that a coroner has confirmed Lenora's pregnancy. Arvin confronts Teagardin at the church and shoots him with the Luger.

Arvin is now on the run and wants to return to Knockemstiff once more. On the way, he is picked up by Carl and Sandy, both of whom he shoots when Carl tries to make him a victim too. Sandy's brother, Lee Bodecker, who has now become the corrupt sheriff of Meade, also finds out about these murders. He follows Arvin to the woods near his parents' house, where Arvin wants to bury the remains of his dog. Lee shoots at Arvin, but is fatally wounded by him. Arvin is then picked up again as a hitchhiker by a driver on his way to Cincinnati. He secretly hopes that the police will realize that Preston Teagardin and Carl and Sandy Henderson were bad people and that his guilt might be forgiven.

## Cast

* Bill Skarsgård as Willard, Arvin's father
* Haley Bennett as Charlotte, Arvin's mother
* Eliza Scanlen as Lenora
* Harry Melling as Roy, Lenora's father
* Mia Wasikowska as Helen Hatton, Lenora's mother
* Kristin Griffith as Emma, Willard's mother and Lenora's adoptive mother
* Riley Keough as Sandy, Lee's sister
* Jason Clarke as Carl, Sandy's husband
* Robert Pattinson as Rev. Preston Teagardin
* Douglas Hodge as Leroy Brown
* Pokey LaFarge as Theodore, Roy's cousin
* Michael Banks Repeta as young Arvin

Donald Ray Pollock, the author of the novel, performs narration throughout the film.

## External links

* The Devil All the Time (film) at Wikipedia
* The Devil All the Time at IMDb