God's Pocket

John Slattery is best known for his role on AMC’s Mad Men, where he plays Roger Stirling, an acerbic philanderer, and sometime LSD-user. However, Slattery is also a fledgling director who’s just released his first feature, a debut all the more remarkable for being one of the last films to star legendary actor Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote, Synecdoche, New York)

God’s Pocket, Slattery’s directorial debut, is itself based on the debut novel by U.S.National Book Award winner, Pete Dexter. The novel, which shares the film’s name, tells the story of a bereaved mother’s quest to find out what happened to her son, and the chaos into which her gritty Philadelphia neighbourhood subsequently descends. Slattery’s film takes this plot as its basis, but develops the character of Mickey, the boy’s step-father, as he searches for answers on his wife’s behalf.

Tonally, the film is subtle and stylishly muted; its dialogue is terse, its humour occasional and dark, and its palette dominated by greys and yellows. Slattery conjures an atmosphere of early 1980s gloom perfectly matched to the film's content.

Slattery also assembles an excellent cast. His Mad Men contemporary Christina Hendricks plays Jeanie, the grieving mother, with genuine intensity. But the film’s stand-out performance is given by Hoffman; beleaguered and dutiful, his Mickey has been widely praised.

With God’s Pocket, Slattery announces himself as a director to watch. Of course he is helped by the talent of his cast, as well as by the masterful camera work of Lance Acord (Lost in Translation, Being John Malkovich), but this well-judged first step is already generating him considerable interest.