Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil
Welcome to Savannah, Georgia. A city of hot nights and cold-blooded murder.
The most important party of the Savannah Christmas season ends with a bang! When affable host Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey) shoots a man to death. The party is over, the mystery begins. Director Clint Eastwood weaves murder, mystery and voodoo into a suptuous adaptation of the John Berendt bestseller based on true events. Spacey and John Cusack as a journalist drawn to Savannah's decadence and eccentrics lead a nimble cast that includes Jack Thompson, Alison Eastwood and The Lady Chablis. For "one of te best American films of the year," rendezvous at Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Member Reviews
MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL - DUCKY
ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN. VERY INTERESTING,COMICAL AND KEEPS YOU GUESSING. IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIND A MOVIE THAT OFFERS HUMOR MIXED WITH DRAMA AND KEPS YOU WONDERING THROUGHOUT AS TO WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!Not Awful, Just Dull And Disappointing - CharleyJames
In John Berendt's book Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, there's a rich, gamey odor that lingers around the edges of his true-life murder tale – a delicious funk that draws as much from the tropical setting of Savannah, Ga., as it does from the book's tapestry of forbidden sex, midnight voodoo, and murder among the rich and powerful.
So, Clint Eastwood's movie was almost guaranteed to disappoint. What wasn't predictable is that it would be dull.
It's dull but not awful. It has two charismatic but ill-served leads in John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. Woven from fact, local lore and embroidering on Berendt's part, it tells of Jim Williams, an antiques dealer who lives in the city's most impressive mansion, shot and killed his young redneck boyfriend and became a touchstone for Savannah's confused jumble of envy, civic pride and barely cloaked homophobia.
Berendt fell in love with Savannah during a visit, made himself a character in the book, wrote it as a nonfiction narrative and filled it with exotic locales.
Problems start when Eastwood accepted John Lee Hancock's script, which beefs up the Berendt character, renames him John Kelso and gives him a local girlfriend, Mandy.
Kelso falls in love with Savannah’s oddities and Mandy aids his research, but they’re little more than plot devices. Their lack of chemistry is one thing but their excessive screen time and pointless romance only steal focus from the Jim Williams character.
Spacey does a usual masterful job, speaking in a honeyed drawl that's full of innuendo, handling his cigarillo like an erotic prop, but the movie doesn't give him time to engage our interest or to explore Williams' slick, self-mythologizing masquerade.
Perhaps Berendt's book, which gained so much from its rich atmosphere and thick skein of overlapping characters, was bound to lose its appeal once its ingredients were boiled down to a filmable essence.Like A Visit To Savannah - johnn_b
Director Clint Eastwood gets everything right in this clever adaptation and simplification of the complex best selling book, which covered the even more complex series of trials concerning the shooting death of a street hustler by a rich and powerful antiques dealer. By allowing real people to portray themselves in several key roles the spirit of the eccentric Southern city of Savannah becomes an important part of the movie. The Lady Chablis, in particular, nearly steals the whole show. Some of our finest character actors take on other roles, and their note-perfect performances also help give the movie a feel and credibility it would otherwise be lacking. Jude Law also makes a brief but intense appearance. This is a highly enjoyable movie. I also reccomend the book, for a different and more complete telling of the factual story.
Member Reviews
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MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL - DUCKY
ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN. VERY INTERESTING,COMICAL AND KEEPS YOU GUESSING. IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIND A MOVIE THAT OFFERS HUMOR MIXED WITH DRAMA AND KEPS YOU WONDERING THROUGHOUT AS TO WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!Not Awful, Just Dull And Disappointing - CharleyJames
In John Berendt's book Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, there's a rich, gamey odor that lingers around the edges of his true-life murder tale – a delicious funk that draws as much from the tropical setting of Savannah, Ga., as it does from the book's ...Like A Visit To Savannah - johnn_b
Director Clint Eastwood gets everything right in this clever adaptation and simplification of the complex best selling book, which covered the even more complex series of trials concerning the shooting death of a street hustler by a rich and powerful antiques ...