Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (film)
From AwardAnnals
| Film: | Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil |
|---|---|
| Director: | Clint Eastwood |
| Genres: | |
| Distributor: | Warner Home Video |
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Reviews
Amazon.com
Readers of John Berendt’s bestselling novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, were bound to be at least somewhat disappointed by this big-screen adaptation, but despite mixed reaction from critics and audiences, there’s still plenty to admire about director Clint Eastwood’s take on the material. Readers will surely miss the rich atmosphere and societal detail that Berendt brought to his “Savannah story,” and the movie can only scratch the surface of Georgian history, tradition and wealthy decadence underlying Berendt’s fact-based murder mystery. Still, Eastwood maintains an assured focus on the wonderful eccentrics of Savannah, most notably a gay Savannah antiques dealer (superbly played by Kevin Spacey), who may or may not have killed his friend and alleged lover (Jude Law). John Cusack plays the Town & Country journalist who arrives in Savannah to find much more than he bargained for—including the city’s legendary drag queen Lady Chablis (playing “herself”)—and John Lee Hancock’s smoothly adapted screenplay succeeds in bringing Berendt’s characters vividly to life with plenty of flavourful dialogue. —Jeff Shannon
Related works
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture
This Clint Eastwood vanity-project was one of the biggest box office disappointments of 1997, despite a masterful performance by Kevin Spacey, Eastwood’s typically subtle direction and, to these ears anyway, one of the most satisfying collections of songs gathered in service of a film in many a year. It didn’t hurt that they were all penned by the late, great Johnny Mercer (a native of Savannah, GA, the film’s locale and most crucial, underrated element) and with the exception of Tony Bennett’s “I Wanna Be Around” and Sinatra’s classic “Summer Wind,” were…
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story
Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of non-fiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing…
