Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Blu-ray Movie Review

"It's Like 'Gone with the Wind' on Mescaline!"

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 28, 2016

Clint Eastwood's 1997 adaptation of the bestselling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is one of the director's box office flops. Weakly reviewed, the film grossed less than its production budget. The consensus seemed to be that Eastwood failed to capture the distinctive atmosphere of John Berendt's mostly true tale of murder and voodoo in Savannah, Georgia, a town where (at least in Berendt's account) eccentricity was not just tolerated but celebrated. Time has been kinder to Eastwood's Midnight, which benefits from superior performances by a cast including both professionals and local residents, as well as from richly atmospheric location photography and a production design that always provides something interesting to look at. Newly transferred for this Blu-ray release by the Warner Archive Collection, the film is ripe for rediscovery.

Failed novelist John Kelso (John Cusack) is sent to Savannah by Town & Country magazine to write a 500-word puff piece on the town's most famous Christmas party, thrown every year by local antiques dealer Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey). Williams hosts the black-tie affair in his sumptuous mansion, the Mercer House, built by the great-grandfather of songwriter Johnny Mercer. But Kelso extends his stay and expands his assignment when, in the early-morning hours after the party, a local hustler named Billy Hanson (Jude Law) is shot dead by Williams, who claims self-defense. The forensic evidence suggests otherwise, and as tales of Williams' homosexual relationship with Billy are salaciously whispered throughout Savannah society, Williams is indicted for first-degree murder.

Following the lead of Berendt's book, Midnight's script by John Lee Hancock (writer/director of The Blind Side) freely digresses from the murder case to follow Kelso's explorations of Savannah and its colorful inhabitants. The writer begins a tentative romance with a flirtatious florist and occasional singer, Mandy Nicholls (Alison Eastwood); becomes friendly with a genial party animal named Joe Odom (Paul Hipp); and spends memorable hours (not always voluntarily) in the company of a theatrical drag queen who knew Billy Hanson, The Lady Chablis (played by the real person). A man who walks an imaginary dog (James Moody) and an inventor named Luther Driggers (Geoffrey Lewis), who has pet horseflies tethered to his clothing with thread, are daily sights to which Kelso finds himself becoming accustomed. An elderly voodoo priestess named Minerva (Irma P. Hall) plies her trade in the local cemetery—the "garden" of the title—and Jim Williams calls her "the most important member of my defense team". His actual lawyer, Sonny Seiler, is played by Jack Thompson, who gleefully wraps his Australian tongue around Seiler's calculated folksiness. (The real Sonny Seiler appears as the judge at Williams' trial.)

Eastwood's quietly observational style provides an effective counterpoint to the continuous weirdness, mirroring Kelso's fascination with an environment in which his hungry writer's appetite keeps finding new sustenance. Still, of all the bizarre personalities he encounters, it is Kevin Spacey's Jim Williams who is ultimately the biggest mystery. A self-made man, Williams relishes the power of money to elevate its owner above social convention, and he seems to enjoy the fact that his lavish spending and exquisite taste allow him to pose as local aristocracy. (As Williams explains to Kelso, he may be nouveau riche, but "it's the riche that counts".) Spacey imbues Williams' every utterance with an insinuating tone that suggests something wicked and delightful (or maybe just wicked) lurking behind the most innocent phrase. Kelso begins with a whole-hearted faith in his new friend's innocence, eagerly throwing himself into investigating for the defense, but he ends the film with grave doubts about what really happened between Williams and Billy Hanson. "Truth, like art, is in the eye of the beholder", Williams says slyly—but if you were to ask Minerva, she'd probably tell you that the spirit world can't be fooled.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was shot on film by Jack N. Green (Serenity), who gives the Savannah locations a rich, warm depth with a palette dominated by deep greens and browns accented by frequent splashes of red to indicate both the holiday season and the passions brewing beneath the town's relaxed charm. For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection, Warner's Motion Picture Imaging facility has newly scanned an interpositive at 2K, followed by MPI's typically meticulous color correction. The result is a richly detailed and film-like image that does equal justice to Savannah's lush vegetation and Jim Williams' equally lush mansion, with its rooms bedecked in paintings and antique bric-a-brac. Blacks are deep and solid, and shadow detail is plentiful, so that the crucial sequence where Williams and Kelso meet Minerva in the cemetery to enlist the spirit world in Williams' defense achieves the intended interplay of shadow and visibility. In the courtroom scenes, expressions on the faces of individual jurors can be seen, as they react to the legal maneuvers by Williams' down-home attorney and the officious prosecutor (played by Bob Gunton). The film's grain pattern is natural and finely resolved. WAC has mastered Midnight at an average bitrate of 31.99 Mbps, which is slightly below its usual target but still generous, and the encoding has been capably performed.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Midnight's theatrical 5.1 soundtrack has been re-encoded for lossless DTS-HD MA. The mix is as understated as the directorial style, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to hear. The surrounds are typically alive with the sounds of the environment, whether it's the quiet hum of small-town streets, the murmur of guests at Jim Williams' famous party, the crowded cabaret where The Lady Chablis performs or, perhaps most memorably, the nocturnal rustling and chirping of the cemetery where Minerva communes with the dead. Dialogue is consistently clear and properly localized. The atmospherically jazzy score is by Eastwood regular Lennie Niehaus, but the soundtrack benefits from numerous Johnny Mercer tunes with vocals from a wide array of talent, including Kevin Spacey and Alison Eastwood.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Warner has released two DVDs of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, one in 1997 and a second in 2010 as part of the "Clint Eastwood Collection". The same extras appeared on both discs and have now been ported over to Blu-ray. The trailer has been remastered in 1080p.

• The Real People in the Garden (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 21:56): Author John Berendt introduces this featurette, which interviews numerous Savannah participants in the events depicted in the book and film. These include Dorothy Kingery (Jim Williams' sister), photographer Richard Sommers, attorney Sonny Seiler, inventor Luther Driggers, Savannah historian John Duncan, Nancy Hills (who is partially a model for Alison Eastwood's character), hair stylist Jerry Spence (who plays himself in the film) and, of course, The Lady Chablis.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:26): "In Savannah . . . the party never stops . . . not even for murder."

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A director given to flashy camera moves and fast editing rhythms might have created the kind of sinister atmosphere that Midnight's fans seemed to be expecting at the time, but Eastwood's low-key approach has the virtue of normalizing the story's outré personalities, treating the oddballs of Savannah as ordinary folk. He relies on Kelso's reactions to supply the outsider's perspective, and Cusack delivers a characteristically understated performance that is exactly what the film needs. WAC's superior Blu-ray presentation is highly recommended.