Review of God's Pocket (2014) by Ben S — 04 Aug 2014

Notable for being one of the last films of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and the directorial debut of Mad Men's John 'Roger Sterling' Slattery, God's Pocket arrives with a considerable heft of expectation. Blue collar lyricism in dark, curtain-drawn rooms is the order of the day as Slattery writes and directs an adaptation of Pete Dexter's novel of the same name. In the tightly knit community of the titular Philadelphia neighbourhood outsiders are treated with suspicion, and local newspaper man Richard Shellburn (Richard Jenkins) is celebrated as a hero who truly 'gets' the hard-drinking, hardworking town. Even Mickey (Hoffman) who has married local girl Jeanie (Christina Hendricks) and established a life there is never accepted as one of their own. Told in hushed tones and the broadest of strokes it's a film of raw meat, gambling and booze, with dialogue coming from the side of mouths to allow a cigarette to rest in the other.

The catalyst for the turmoil in the Pocket is the death of Jeanie's scumbag son on a construction site. With the incident chalked off as an accident, the grieving mother rightfully suspects foul play and enlists the erudite journo, Shellburn, to uncover what the cops failed to. All the while Mickey attempts to thieve and gamble - with a little help from John Turturro - to earn enough to pay for the boy's funeral, and pay off his various mounting debts. It's grim in the Pocket, is the general gist.

A mournful soulfulness hangs in the air, but abrupt jolts of black comedy frequently prove to disrupt any rhythm that forms. Every line shouldn't be a killer one delivered with a full stop, but that is very much Slattery's approach here - an eagerness for every moment to be 'the' moment, at a detriment to the whole piece. Oddly, it also seems to have a real disdain for its dishevelled working class characters, driven by Jenkins' narration that paints the town as a rabble of lowlifes and morons. It's a conflict that sits uneasily throughout: Slattery has realised the period 80's details and boozy lives with real affection, but drives us further away from empathy with this central dissenting voice. Jenkins is arguably the most interesting character - by virtue of having more depth than the catalogue of two-dimensional crooks and barflies - but even he is left a little neglected and never fully explored.

Lacking in character it falls to the plot to draw us into God's Pocket - however, having exposed the decisive act on the construction site in the opening movements it misses the bite of a whodunnit and instead gives itself over to predictability. A horse that won't come in, a nervous kid we know will talk. We are left leaning on the sticky bar with the rest of the schlubs, waiting for events to play out.

To give Slattery his dues, God's Pocket is a solidly put together debut that benefits from a sharp script overflowing with witticism and the poetry of despair. So while it may fail to register on the sincere emotional spectrum its snappy dialogue is never less than entertaining. But the true saviour of the film is its cast, all frankly so talented they could provide some class and the illusion of weight to any flawed production. Awash with definite soulfulness, it is tricky to distinguish whether this poignancy comes from Hoffman's real life passing or the effect of the film itself - the suspicion being the former. An entertaining if wholly unremarkable crawl through small town misery.