God’s Pocket ***
If you think you’ve got/had it rough you haven’t experienced God’s Pocket. Mind you, don’t let any of the locals hear you snigger because only they are qualified the kick their crumby situation and location. This is a story directed by Mad Men’s John Slattery, based on a novel by Peter Dexter about a working-class dive of South Philadelphia, USA and its sorry inhabitants. It’s also one of the last films to feature the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman alongside an impressive cast of Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, John Turturro, Eddie Marsan and Richard Jenkins. It’s a slice of rundown despair covered with a large topping of jet-black humour that feels oddly paced at times.
Mickey (Seymour Hoffman) is married to local girl Jeanie (Hendricks) who loses her cocky adult son, Leon (Caleb Landry Jones) at work one day in a supposed ‘accident’ – unbeknown to them, the fallout from a racist attack. Jeanie is convinced there has been foul play, and wants Mickey to find out more through his shady ‘associates’ that include friend and fellow screw-up Bird (Turturro).
But like a lot of things in Mickey’s life, nothing is ever simple. Meanwhile, following a misprint in the local newspaper about the death of her son, sleazy, booze-addled columnist – and local ‘hero’ – Richard Shellburn (Jenkins) reluctantly agrees to set things straight and interviews the family. On meeting Jeanie, he falls for her voluptuous charms and supposed vulnerability, trying to woo her. News spreads and things get ugly, while broke Mickey can’t afford to pay for his stepson Leon’s funeral, much to the annoyance of slippery undertaker Smilin’ Jack Moran (Marsan).
This character drama is probably one of the bleakest fictional ones on screen in a while, with its dark humour lifting it out of the very pits of despair and Hendricks providing a flicker of loveliness in the rut. The performances are unanimously intriguing, with a cast that fits like a glove – it’s just a shame it will be known more as ‘the last Seymour Hoffman film’ rather than Slattery’s directorial debut. That said there are some rather memorable and exacerbating characters to ‘feel superior to’ and appalled at alongside some stereotypical Italian/Irish-American ones thrown in for good, safety measure (hence some clichéd aspects). All of them revolve around a hovel of a bar, like every good soap opera or latter-day western.
But Cheers it’s not, more like an American Eastenders in the gloom stakes – but with farcical humour injected. In fact the latter goes oddly slapstick in moments, pulling you out of the mire that’s been so effortlessly developed in Slattery’s setting and into an altogether different stride. It seems to be down to Seymour Hoffman’s character’s ‘shit happens’, blasé attitude to bring you back into the haze and pace of God’s Pocket – in a sense, re-emphasising once you’re there you never leave.
There is also a pocket of ‘bad taste’ involving Jenkins’ Shellburn character that feels vexing in how it wants one character to be ultimately perceived and is less satisfactorily resolved. These and the peculiar ending make it tricky to decipher the film’s overall impression it wants to make with its audience, even with the help of a little narrative. It’s a mixed bag of affairs that you could argue makes it all the more curious. If you like your drama way down on its luck with a black heart, God’s Pocket is totally watchable in this respect, but be prepared to be jolted out of the doldrums by absurd comedy that upsets the chagrin.
3/5 stars
By @FilmGazer
