November 21, 1997 | Even at two and one-half hours, Clint Eastwood’s film of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil isn’t nearly long enough to encompass all the amusing quirks and characters that make John Berendt’s book such an addictively enjoyable treat. But, then again, Berendt’s immensely popular “non-fiction novel” — which has been on the best-seller charts longer than George W. Bush has been governor — is the type of loosely-structured, richly atmospheric narrative that usually defies the best efforts of any filmmaker who tries to distill its distinctive style and flavorsome substance.
Midnight is many things: memoir, travelogue, sketchbook, murder mystery, situation comedy. Most of all, it is the author’s affectionate homage to Savannah, Ga., a place where the locals celebrate their insularity and cultivate their eccentricity. In 1982, Berendt, then a 42-year-old Manhattan journalist, fell in love with the city during an impulsive visit. He remained there off and on for the next several years, gradually becoming part of the community that amused, entertained and, sometimes, astonished him.
Much of the book focuses on Jim Williams, a discretely gay and flamboyantly wealthy antiques dealer who was tried four times for the fatal shooting of his much younger redneck lover. But Williams is just one of many characters who make indelible impressions in Midnight. Other attention-grabbers include Joe Odom, an ex-lawyer and full-time libertine who occupies empty houses and turns them into party zones; Emma Kelly, a.k.a. “The Lady of Six Thousand Songs,” an aging but indefatigable piano player who performs at Sunday school classes and smoky honky-tonks with equal enthusiasm; and Luther Driggers, a morose inventor who often surrounds himself with lassoed houseflies, and frequently threatens to poison the city’s water supply with a fearsomely lethal toxin.
In a class by herself: The Lady Chablis, a sassy, brassy female impersonator who crowns herself as Empress of Savannah, and who delights in cadging pay-offs from the nervous parents of her boyfriends by pretending to be pregnant.
Dwelling on these and other colorful characters for 388 pages is a bit like taking a delightful vacation that you hope will never end, and meeting people you can’t wait to describe to the folks back home. (That’s one reason why Midnight has remained a best-seller for so long — word-of-mouth buzz is always the most effective kind of advertising.) By comparison, the movie version seems more like a weekend jaunt. You have less time to see fewer things, and you have to take a lot of shortcuts. Still, you can still have a good time. And if you don’t know what you’re missing — that is, if you’re not yet a reader of Berendt’s best-seller — you might enjoy yourself even more.
Screenwriter John Lee Hancock (A Perfect World) has done an intelligent and efficient job of compressing, reshaping and embellishing Berendt’s leisurely discursive book. Many of the changes — one trial instead of four, briefer appearances by minor characters, more active participation by the visiting journalist — are part of a streamlining process that is inevitable when someone imposes the structure of a plot on an essentially plotless narrative. (Berendt freely admits that he, too, did a fair amount of compressing, restructuring and speculating while writing his book in the first place.) A few other changes — most notably, the concoction of a romance between John Kelso (John Cusack), Berendt’s on-screen alter ego, and Mandy Nicholls (Alison Eastwood, the director’s daughter), a composite of two women from Berendt’s book — smack of Hollywood hokum. On the balance, however, the hokum is outweighed by the shrewd moves.
By far the shrewdest of moves is the casting of Oscar winner Kevin Spacey as the impudently indolent Jim Williams, a nouveau riche voluptuary who appreciates the finer things in life — and, unfortunately, the rougher stuff in bed. In the movie version of Berendt’s version of real life, Kelso arrives in Savannah to write 500 words for Town and Country magazine about one of Williams’ legendary Christmas parties. Kelso decides to stick around, and maybe write a book, when Williams is arrested for shooting Billy Hanson (Jude Law), a hunky hustler with a hair-trigger temper. Williams claims he shot Billy, his sometime lover, in self-defense. Sonny Seiler (Jack Thompson), Williams’ robustly anxious lawyer, suspects the killing was a crime of passion. But the district attorney decides the charge should be first-degree murder.
When he isn’t busy being seduced by the more charming eccentricities of Savannah, Kelso plays a key role in clearing Williams. Afterwards, however, the journalist comes to question his first impressions. And Williams discovers that, unlike his tediously disapproving neighbors, fate has a nasty sense of humor.
As Williams, Spacey saunters through the film with the bemused expression and studied languor of a man who knows he very rarely has to raise his voice to be paid attention. If Savannah, as Kelso says at one point, “is Gone With the Wind on mescaline,” then Spacey’s performance is Oscar Wilde on Prozac.
Cusack is just abrasive enough as Kelso, a fish out of water who immerses himself in the local color. Even though a few scenes call for the character to do some heavy lifting and advance the plot, Kelso is more a reactive observer than an active participant. To use a sporting metaphor, Cusack knows just when to run with the ball, when to pass it — and when to sit patiently on the sidelines while somebody else goes for the long yardage. He also has some sweetly flirtatious moments with Alison Eastwood, whose performance is pleasing enough to dispel any suspicions of nepotism.
Cusack is a grand foil for Lady Chablis, who plays herself with a richly comical flourish of self-aggrandizing gusto. Reportedly, she and Cusack improvised many of their scenes, under Clint Eastwood’s indulgent but disciplined direction. On a few occasions, their interactions seem tentative, almost out of sync. More often, however, they bring out the best in each other. The only problem is, what will Academy Award voters do with Lady Chablis? Best Supporting Actor or Best Supporting Actress?
If they choose the first category, then Lady Chablis might find herself competing with Jack Thompson, who very nearly walks off with the film as Sonny Seiler, a deceptively bumpkinish good-ol’-boy who asserts himself as a crafty legal strategist and a passionate courtroom orator. Irma P. Hall has far less to do as Minerva, the voodoo priestess and homespun sage who provides supernatural support for Williams’ defense, but she makes her every minute count. Not incidentally, she’s the one who explains the significance of the title of Berendt’s book and Eastwood’s adaptation.
As usual, Eastwood directs with unhurried attentiveness to detail and unfashionable disregard for short attention spans. At 67, he is one of the last of the Hollywood classicists, and the measured pace of his storytelling is perfectly suited to telling a story that, even after Hancock’s tinkering and retrofitting, is more character-driven than plot-propelled. Eastwood filmed most of Midnight on location in Savannah, and Lady Chablis is only one of the prominent citizens he cast in supporting roles. (The real Sonny Seiler plays the judge who presides over Williams’ trial.) The verisimilitude greatly enhances the movie.
If Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fails to be fully satisfying, chalk it up to the movie’s one great shortcoming: Try as they might, Eastwood and Hancock aren’t able to fully and persuasively dramatize for us the reasons why, ultimately, John Kelso simply cannot leave Savannah. Indeed, during the final minutes of the movie, Kelso seems so bitterly disillusioned that nothing short of a deus ex machina plot twist would convince him to stay. And even after the plot is twisted, to provide an incongruously upbeat ending, we’re still not entirely convinced that he wouldn’t want to leave.
For the most part, however, this is a worthy translation of a book that many people thought was unfilmable. And if a few things have been lost in the translation, never mind. All it will take is a trip to the book store — or, if you’ve already bought and read the book, a second perusal of its pages — to fill in the gaps.
