Posthumous film roles are invariably bittersweet: good, bad or otherwise, we cling onto those minutes of screen-time and rue what might have been.
And while Philip Seymour Hoffman achieved a fair bit in his acting career, it’s still only natural to be elegiac about the passing of such a titanic performer on both stage and screen.
Proof of that can be found in upcoming film God’s Pocket, featuring Hoffman in one of his final starring roles, and, poignantly, it's a comedy drama awash with themes of death and bereavement itself.
Written and directed by John Slattery, it takes its name from a blue-collar cranny of Philadelphia revolving around a bar where everyone knows your name for the wrong reasons - like Hoffman’s in-debt hustler, who can’t catch a break after his son-in-law dies in a mysterious accident.
Highlighting this highly-charged mix of slapstick and morbidity, here's a terrific exclusive clip of the coffin-black comedy, where we see Hoffman's schlub asking Eddie Marsan’s hot-headed local funeral director for a bit of slack with paying for a casket.
It's a fitting farewell.
God's Pocket is out in cinemas from 8 August
