`Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” is director Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of John Berendt’s celebrated book about a real-life killing in Savannah, Ga., a bizarre and fascinating travelogue into a world of lazy days, tasty pleasures and hidden madness. One of Eastwood’s most remarkable performances as a director, the movie carries us into territory strange both physically and psychologically. It’s a clear-eyed portrait of a world that seems crazy and defiantly askew yet somehow stays outwardly real, cool and even beautiful.
Coolness, perhaps, is one of the keys to Eastwood’s whole approach, as actor and filmmaker. Using material that might become sordid or tawdry in other hands, he once again tamps down the emotional temperature, keeps everything lucid and calm. What he shows us is an amazing piece of warped Americana: the world of Savannah, the antebellum city that Gen. Sherman didn’t burn while marching through Georgia. And the place where, in 1981, a wealthy antiques dealer and mansion restorer named Jim Williams shot his handyman lover in the library of his own elegant landmark home.
The movie, like the book, memorably introduces us to this stunning Southern city, Williams and a variety of colorful characters taken from life — including one of Berendt’s real-life subjects: flamboyant transsexual entertainer Lady Chablis appearing, in very high style, as herself. We see them all through the eyes of an outside reporter, fictional John Kelso (John Cusack), who’s come to cover a legendary Williams Christmas party for Town and Country magazine and stays to follow the trial, with provocative side journeys through the intermingling Savannah realms of wealth, law and show business.
Savannah has a visible side and another, protected one. That secret territory splits open when Williams shoots and kills Billy Hanson (Jude Law), his volatile lover and a rough trade bully whom Kelso saw earlier that party night brandishing a gun and threatening Williams.
Was it murder or self-defense? The movie keeps that question ambiguous, focusing instead on the ways Williams’ revealed homosexuality changes the city and Williams’ social set. It’s part of Eastwood’s libertarian viewpoint that Williams, The Lady Chablis and all the town’s outsiders shouldn’t be ostracized. The real danger lies elsewhere, in that razor-thin separation between evil and good that voodoo mistress Minerva (Irma P. Hall) reveals in the real Garden of Good and Evil: a local cemetery where Minerva can work good for half an hour before midnight and evil in the half-hour afterward.
Berendt told his tale of charms and bloody death with style and humor. And so does Eastwood. Even though he stays behind the camera, venturing into social and psychological territory that may seem foreign to him, he puts his controlled but often whimsical imprint on the film. Directing for only the third time (the others were “Breezy” and “Bird”) without himself as star insurance, Eastwood uses two actors known for their sardonic intelligence: Spacey as the suavely ironical Williams and Cusack as the attractively glib Kelso. Both are excellent, and both suggest sides of Eastwood he doesn’t usually show as an actor. So, in fact, does most of the movie.
“Midnight” is a film about a protected realm of wealth and sensuality, as seen by a bemused outsider: a city of outrageous eccentricities — ranging from the elderly servant who walks a non-existent dog every morning (so he can keep receiving a complex bequest from his late employer) to the queen of all kooks, The Lady Chablis, with her biting wit and slinky gowns, her lewd chatter and flamboyant self-display.
In a way, the man walking through this madness, Kelso, is like actor Eastwood’s own previous roles: The Man With No Name (in the Sergio Leone trilogy), Coogan, Dirty Harry Callahan, Josey Wales or William Munny (in “Unforgiven”). He is a fish out of water, traveling into perilous territory, where most of the rules are suddenly reversed. Nearly every Eastwood picture shares that alienation. They’re about images of masculinity, social entrapment and journeys into darkness and danger, and so is “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
But here, the threat is less from violence than sex. Both Williams and The Lady Chablis put a lascivious edge into their conversations with Kelso, and Eastwood (and Cusack) treat both as a kind of comic threat. But it’s the playful flirtations of The Lady Chablis that Kelso responds to, rather than Williams’ calmer calculation, while Kelso carries on a real romance with Mandy Nichols (Alison Eastwood, the director’s daughter), a jazz chanteuse who picks him up one night. Yet, just as Savannah society moves away from Williams, Kelso stays. (In the movie, there’s only one trial; in real life, Williams had four, with three appeals.)
There’s an unhurried ease about the movie that becomes truly seductive. Fittingly, the film floats along on a river of pop and jazz ballads, written by Savannah native and lyricist Johnny Mercer (“Accentuate the Positive,” “Fools Rush In”), who was also the grandson of Gen. Hugh Mercer, original occupant of Williams’ mansion. “Midnight” gives us a grand tour of Savannah, guiding us through the actual scenes and places of the story — including the room in the Williams mansion where the fatal shooting took place. Most of the characters are real, except for Kelso (a kind of surrogate for author Berendt), and three Williams relatives are in the cast. With great wily expansiveness, Australian Jack Thompson (the lawyer in “Breaker Morant”) plays Sonny Seiler, Williams’ attorney and the proud owner of the University of Georgia mascot, UGA the bulldog — while the real Sonny Seiler takes the role of the trial judge hearing his arguments.
With its unique realism and flair for the bizarre, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” is the sort of movie only a supremely confident studio filmmaker, with lots of clout, could pull off these days. And though some audiences may find it overlong, I’d advise them to follow the director’s example: relax, take it easy, keep your eyes and mind open. Like most of Eastwood’s best directorial work — “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” “Honkytonk Man,” “Bird” and “Unforgiven” — this movie faces some of the worst, saddest and most dangerous aspects of American life with equanimity, humor and grace: with that sly, calm self-awareness Eastwood has made his trademark. It’s cool. . . .
”MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL”
(star) (star) (star) 1/2
Directed by Clint Eastwood; written by John Lee Hancock, based on the book by John Berendt; photographed by Jack N. Green; edited by Joel Cox; production designed by Henry Bumstead; music by Lennie Niehaus; produced by Arnold Stiefel. A Warner Bros. release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:34. MPAA rating: R. Language, sensuality, nudity, violence.
THE CAST
Jim Williams ……………. Kevin Spacey
John Kelso ……………… John Cusack
Billy Hanson ……………. Jude Law
Sonny Seiler ……………. Jack Thompson
The Lady Chablis ………… Herself
Minerva ………………… Irma P. Hall
Mandy Nichols …………… Alison Eastwood
