The Devil All the Time will not be the movie for you if you are looking for an easy, quick, lighthearted experience. This is a movie that’s dark, has morally reprehensible characters all throughout, and often feels uncomfortable to watch. That being said, I found it to be a really interesting movie, and one of the best things to come out of Netflix all year.

The plot is a bit hard to explain without going into specifics, so I’ll do my best here. The Devil All the Time is one of those movies with an ensemble cast of characters. So, while many will consider Tom Holland’s character Arvin to be the main character, Holland doesn’t actually show up until 45 minutes into the movie, and even after that we jump into the lives of others pretty often. We first jump into the life of Arvin’s dad, Willard, who has some trouble adjusting to life after the war. Still, he settles down and has a son, Arvin, and difficulties in the family begin to emerge after a while. We eventually jump to Arvin as a teenager. At this point, Arvin has built up a lot of anger in his heart, and he’s having trouble reconciling a lot of the things that have happened to him so far. This isn’t helped by the fact that he ends up seeing the worst parts of many people around him firsthand.

I’m going to stop there to avoid any spoilers. I found Arvin’s journey and character arc to be really fascinating, and he’s one of my favorite characters I’ve seen in a movie this year. He’s a good enough character on paper, but Tom Holland really makes him shine. Holland delivers what has easily been his best performance so far, and tackles the emotional turmoil that Arvin is going through with grace. There were so many times where I could feel the anger building in Arvin, and I was anxious that Tom Holland was about to explode at any moment. He also shows some range later on in the film when the character begins to unravel a bit and get more scared. The other big standout in the movie is Robert Pattinson, who does an amazing job at playing a charismatic, corrupt preacher. Whenever either of these actors were on-screen (and especially during scenes where they’re on together), I got completely immersed.

If I’m going to criticize the movie for anything, I think it would just be its length. The movie runs a little long at 2 hours and 18 minutes, although luckily none of it is ever boring. I think my only real problem was that the beginning of it felt a little long. Like I said, it takes 45 minutes for Tom Holland to first appear on-screen, and so if it were up to me I would have just trimmed the beginning to be about 20 minutes shorter.

Otherwise, I thought the movie was fantastic. It really caught me by surprise, since it kind of flew under my radar until I saw it released on Netflix this past weekend. And also, if we’re being honest with each other, 90% of Netflix original films are just sub-par at best. So, I haven’t really grown to expect much from them, which is why when something like The Devil All the Time comes around, I’m blown away. The only barrier I can see to someone not liking this movie is if you’re not a fan of dark, uncomfortable, twisted stories. If it is up your alley, though, I think it’s absolutely worth checking out.

4.5/5