Remarkable "Garden"

Johnny Mercer tunes aptly serenade the remarkable 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and not just because the murder at the core of the actual story occurred in the Mercer Savannah homestead. Mercer's beautiful antebellum town with its amazing characters also provide the springboard for this movie. 

The Deep South setting makes it truly remarkable that:

1. A Californian, directed it.
2. His daughter, born in Santa Monica, plays the love interest.
3. Some guy from New Jersey delivers the perfect Southern gentleman.
4. An Aussie creates an exceptional Southern lawyer.
5. A refined Brit makes a freaky Southern redneck.

Where Clint Eastwood got his sense of the South and its manners, outside of his many roles in Westerns, is anybody's guess. This film may show his true talents lie in directing.

Kevin Spacey was born to play Jim Williams. He was also born in New Jersey. How does a New Jerseyan play a Southerner to such perfection?* Maybe his roommate at Northridge Military Academy was from the South. Or the Julliard School really is worth the money.

Jack Thompson deserved an Academy Award for playing Southern lawyer, Sonny Seiler — and he's Australian. Remarkable.**

The actual "lady" who stole the book still steals the movie.

Casting real-live people as themselves in motion pictures, no matter how talented, can be a little risky. But not every real-live person has the talents of The Lady Chablis. She steals the movie in her very first film role.*** Truly remarkable.

Dorothy Loudon as the dotty Serena Dawes and Michael Rosenbaum testifying as George Tucker remarkably prove the old adage that there's no such thing as a small part in acting.****

And Irma P. Hall as Minerva is a piece of cinema history.

These actors, delivering themselves or carefully-developed characters for us to enjoy, largely serve as set pieces for one of the most remarkable courtroom scenarios in American cinematic history — somehow a cross between To Kill a Mockingbird and My Cousin Vinny. 

The most remarkable thing about this remarkable film is how it survived its lead actor doing his best to single-handedly destroy it. Mr. Cusack was making another movie, apparently, while repeatedly rolling his eyes upward like a nervous tic. As one of four films he made in 1997, maybe he just didn't have time or inclination to prepare like the other actors did, deciding rather to wing it. 

With this super-talented, prepared crowd — giving us an acting seminar on the screen — that seems a poor choice indeed.

*This reviewer, not a fan of this actor, would have given him the Oscar for this film rather than for his work a year earlier.

**As one who's created a few characters himself, I'd really like to know how he did it.

***Paul Hipp does his best to steal the honors from the lady as Joe Odom. He's from Pennsylvania(of course).

****She was born in Boston; he is from New York state (of course).