In Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, John Kelso, John Cusack, is a writer with one not-very-successful novel to his credit who arrives in Savannah, Ga, on assignment from Town and Country magazine to cover a celebrated annual Christmas Party given by one of the city`s most cultivated citizens, Jim Williams, Kevin Spacey, an antique dealer who lives in the beautifully restored Mercer House. Savannah is a beautiful backwater with a well-defined class structure and some very colourful citizens, among them beautiful Mandy, Alison Eastwood, the voodoo-practising Minerva (Irma P. Hall) and the eccentric Lady Chablis.... Kelso`s assignment is transformed when, in the aftermath of the party, Williams` lover, Billy Hanson, Jude Law, is shot dead and Kelso finds himself involved in a murder investigation, helping out Sonny Seiler, Jack Thomson, the lawyer acting for Williams.
Although it centres on a murder and a subsequent trial, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil is not in any sense a conventional courtroom thriller - far from it. Like John Berendt`s factual novel, on which John Lee Hancock`s screenplay is based, the film is an evocation of a small town and the people who live there; and Clint Eastwood`s magnificent though deliberately leisurely direction, devotes plenty of time to apparently marginal - but really quite crucial - events and characters. Among these, Lady Chablis - a transvestite entertainer who memorably plays herself, is outstanding. Outstanding, too, is Jack Thompson as the defence lawyer - a warm, witty, generous performance.
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