Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a 1997 American mystery thriller film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood and starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. The screenplay by John Lee Hancock was based on John Berendt's 1994 book of the same name and follows the story of antiques dealer Jim Williams, on trial for the murder of a male prostitute who was his lover. The multiple trials depicted in Berendt's book are combined into one trial for the film.
Several real-life locals appear in the movie, notably in the Christmas party scene at Mercer House, including Williams' sister, Dorothy, and nieces Susan and Amanda, as well as Georgia senator John R. "Jack" Riley (his wife was played by Mary Alice Hendrix). Filming was permitted inside Mercer House, but action scenes and those in the courtroom were filmed later on a soundstage at Warner Bros.
Three people — The Lady Chablis, Emma Kelly and Jerry Spence — play themselves, while Sonny Seiler, one of Williams' lawyers in the book, plays Judge Samuel L. White. Danny Hansford, the shooting victim in the book, is renamed Billy Hanson in the film and is portrayed by a 24-year-old Jude Law, in one of his early film roles.
The on-location scenes were shot in Savannah, Georgia.
Plot
The panoramic tale of Savannah's eccentricities focuses on a murder and the subsequent trial of Jim Williams, a self-made man, art collector, antiques dealer, bon vivant, and semi-closeted homosexual. John Kelso, a magazine reporter with one book — Before the Fall — to his name, arrives in Savannah, amid beautiful architecture and odd doings, to write a feature for Town & Country on one of Williams' famous Christmas parties. After being unable to find a taxi, Kelso gets a ride from a tour-bus driver to Jones Street.
After a tour of Savannah's tourist hotspots, Kelso alights at Forsyth Park. Making his way to his lodging in Monterey Square, he has a brief interaction with Billy Hanson in front of Mercer House.
Kelso visits the Armstrong Mansion offices of Sonny Seiler, lawyer to Williams. Seiler introduces Kelso to Williams, and they take Seiler's dog, Uga IV, for a walk through Forsyth Park.
The following night, at Williams' annual Mercer House Christmas party, Kelso is guest of honor. Long after the guests have all left, Hanson is shot dead by Williams in his office after an argument between the two. Kelso stays on to cover the murder trial. Along the way, he meets some characters: the irrepressible The Lady Chablis, a transgender entertainer; Luther, a man who keeps flies attached to strings on his lapels and threatens daily to poison the water supply; Serena Dawes, a former silent-film actress; the Married Women's Card Club; and Minerva, a spiritualist and root doctor, based on real-life Valerie Boles.
Between becoming Williams' friend, cuddling-up to torch singer Mandy Nichols — also a love interest of Joe Odom — meeting every eccentric in Savannah, participating in midnight graveyard rituals, and helping solve the mysteries surrounding Hanson's murder, Kelso has his hands full. When Williams becomes confident he can win his case on a matter of flawed police procedure, he falsely testifies to killing Hanson with return fire in self-defense, to the disappointment of Kelso, to whom Williams has confessed he executed Hanson in retaliation for attempting to shoot him with the safety on. The judge and jury later find Williams not guilty.
As Kelso is leaving town, when saying goodbye to Williams, he asks one last question for the book: Does he want to tell him what really happened? Williams replies, "Truth, like art, is in the eye of the beholder. You believe what you choose, and I'll believe what I know." He watches from the window as Kelso walks away. Minutes later, Williams is stricken by a sudden heart attack and falls face down on the carpet. His heartbeat slows. He imagines Hanson lying alongside him, as he was in death. Their eyes meet, Hanson raises his head, smiles, then resumes his position, lifeless. The heartbeat has stopped. An overhead shot shows the two dead men lying like mirror images, then Hanson fades away.
After the funeral, Minerva tells Kelso he knows all he needs to know and warns him not to waste too much time on the dead. “I love you, boy, but I ain’t the only one. You know that, don't you?” Later, Kelso signs a six-month lease on an apartment. To celebrate, he, Mandy and Lady Chablis, who is walking Uga, stroll off together for a picnic. Minerva, who is feeding squirrels in the park, laughs as they pass. Cut to the cemetery and shots of the two graves. The credits roll over film of Bird Girl, with k.d. lang singing “Skylark”, as she does in the movie's opening.