Review of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) by Clay B — 02 Jun 2011

Clint Eastwood's 1997 film is a tale based on John Berendt's book about a Savannah murder case in which Jim Williams(Kevin Spacey), a wealthy local antique dealer, is tried for the murder of his toy boy, Billy Henson(Jude Law). John Kelso(John Cusack), a Town&Country journalist arrives in Savannah in order to interview Williams about his famous Christmas party and ends up trying to solve the murder case & falling in love with a local girl....

The central quality of the film isn't really the murder plot and whether Kelso's going to solve it or not. It's the gallery of colorful characters that appear in it-from Jim Williams himself, a perfect gay dandy, to Lady Chablis, the oh-so-fabulous local transvestite, and Minerva, the creepy voodoo priestess. Chablis, a real-life drag queen, visibly enjoyed her participation in the film- the scene where she crashes the formal black ball dressed in a sequined showstopper and causes a sensation(or rater, a scandal) is among the best. John Cusack plays out one of his trademark character traits, meaning he's slightly irritating, as usual. Jude Law seems to be condemned to playing shallow pretty boys, though Kevin Spacey's Jim Williams might want to convince you otherwise. His lines are some of the best here: "just the right people I want to piss off". The director succeeds in transforming Savannah into a magical, mystical stage for his theater of the absurd with enough space to accommodate all of its eccentricities and where, in the end, it doesn't matter how the play will end, as long as we enjoy the show. It's an allegory of the American South as a place where the difference between imagination and reality is blurred; where people walk invisible dogs and women hide their "candy"....