Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)

The games of characters, the atmosphere of South , the brilliant performance of Kevin Specey and the fascinating work of John Cusack are pieces of a great movie about guilty, truth, desires and their high price. an innocent writer, a rich man, clues and a death as key of dark rooms of the life of community. and, always, the ambiguity between what you see and what you know. sure, the references to "Citizen Kane" iis obvious. maybe, too obvious. but , like it, it is a film about the fragility and shadows of a world more than a man. a film of large games. games of destiny or only sketches of a mind who knows the rules of life.

I happened to see this film by chance on TV last night, and i kept waiting for something more interesting to happen. Nothing really did intrigue me much, but i was curious enough to see how things would develop, so i sat it through. The positive aspects are definitely the actors, and some of the characters was really amusing, and managed to at least keep me interested for some time. But it is very slow... I got interested when i saw that John Cusack starred in it, but he could not save the slow pace of this film. The humour was present and well used, especially by that trans gender (i suppose she was) character and that strange psychic woman, although her strange laugh i never understood the reason for... Overall very strange characters and somewhat funny in a semi-serious plot. Yet a very boring plot, a lot of more things could have happened to keep this from getting too trivial. No excitement whatsoever... Not too bad, it had great potential but the end was the worst. My company felt deceived after watching it, and i was a bit too i guess, and oh well... Just a bit bored. Not much good plot, it could have been developed in a much better way. Not bad, but... A yawn for me. Sorry. I really don't understand how this movie can be so praised.

John Kelso (John Cusack) is a writer from Town and Country magazine. He's brought to Savannah to write a feature on Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey)'s famous Christmas party. The city is filled with eccentrics. Kelso finds nouveau rich Williams fascinating. Mandy Nicholls (Alison Eastwood) brings him to Joe Odom's party. The next night, he attends Williams' party. Williams' volatile young lover Billy Hanson (Jude Law) is dead after a fight with Williams. Kelso stays to write a book about the murder trial.Director Clint Eastwood is more interested in the wild crazy characters than any murder mystery. His matter-of-fact style may not be the best for the material. This needs flair. The weird characters could give this movie great moodiness or flamboyance. Either way would be great. Instead, Eastwood is just pointing the camera at them. Some of it is interesting but the movie isn't very engaging.

a form of delight. for the construction of characters grace impressive acting, for the atmosphere and a wise script. for little details who gives life not only for an inspired adaptation but for a nice and precise analysis of an universe. it is a special film for the force of performance and beautiful game of nuances. for the joy and for the pieces of drama as ambiguous dark water. for its magic in a different definition form. for its flavor who remember roots, tradition, crumbs from old Belle Epoque and collision between South and North vision about reality and rules. a seductive film , remarkable arena for few talented actors to do the best work.