Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

A film set in Savannah. A magazine writer comes to the city. His assignment is short: get a piece out of a party and go home. The host is Jim Williams; an antiques dealer, rich, and the owner of the most striking house in town. On the night after the party there is a death. A gun goes off in Williams's house and a young man dies. The writer stays. From there the film runs on two lines. On one, the case: Williams claims self-defence, the prosecution thinks otherwise, and the trial goes on. On the other, the city itself. The city is the real subject. The writer describes the people he meets in Savannah: a man who lost his dog years ago and still walks it, a man who says he could poison the town, Chablis who works at a club, and a woman who works in the graveyard. What the narrative is interested in is not the crime but tolerance: this city accepts everyone's strangeness and nobody feels the need to ask for an explanation. The source is John Berendt's non-fiction book and the case is real; the book stayed on the American bestseller lists for a long time. John Cusack plays the writer and Kevin Spacey plays Williams. Chablis plays herself. Jude Law, Alison Eastwood and Jack Thompson are in the cast. Clint Eastwood directed. The film runs over two and a half hours. Who it is for: anyone who likes calm, strange films with a strong sense of place. Who it is not for: anyone expecting suspense; the trial moves slowly and the film gives its real attention to the city.