John Cusack stars as John Kelso, a stand-in for Berendt, who arrives in Savannah to profile Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey) during his legendary holiday party. The night takes a fatal turn when Williams kills his volatile young lover, Billy Hanson (Jude Law in an early role). Kelso stays in Savannah to cover the trial, becoming immersed in a world of voodoo priestesses, drag queens, eccentric billionaires, and whispered secrets. As Williams stands trial four times (mirroring the real-life legal saga), Kelso questions where performance ends and truth begins—and whether justice in Savannah has its own set of rules.
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The title itself is the film’s thesis. In a pivotal line, Jim Williams quotes a note from his lawyer’s secretary: “The book said, ‘There was a time when the line between good and evil was a picket fence. Now it’s a bridge.’” John Cusack stars as John Kelso, a stand-in
When John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994, it became an unprecedented phenomenon. Subtitled A Savannah Story , the book spent 216 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. It was part true-crime, part travelogue, and part social study—a combination that critics called "unfilmable." The narrative did not follow a single protagonist but rather orbited the magnetic personality of Jim Williams, a wealthy antiquities dealer accused of murdering his young male lover, Danny Hansford. As Williams stands trial four times (mirroring the