Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Savannah, Georgia, is an interesting city and the citizens are the most interesting part. A reporter who had been hired to cover a socialite's Christmas party decides to remain there instead of heading home to New York City and begins to write a book based in the city.

The Christmas party is hosted by Jim Williams (played by Kevin Spacey) and is a gathering of the local who's who of Savannah. Williams has a glorious southern style mansion covered in antiques from the world over. However, after the party is over, Williams's lover is killed and he is arrested and brought to trial. The citizens of this town are then investigated by the journalist John Kelso (played by John Cusack) as to help defend the apparent innocence of Williams.

Tropes used in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil include:
  • Autobiographical Role: Lady Chablis plays herself, however her name is not actually Frank, it's Benjamin.
  • Asshole Victim: Billy Hanlon gives John the stinkeye when he's looking around town and then threatens Jim and John both with a broken bottle after Jim won't give him $20 for booze.
  • Big Fancy House: Jim's is apparently takes up an entire block and he does not spare any expense on the interior either.
  • Black Best Friend: Lady Chablis is a very odd one for John.
  • Blind Seer: Minerva plays the part for this trope but does not appear to actually be blind, but does almost always wear large opaque sunglasses.
  • Book Ends: A focus on the statue and then Minerva talking to a squirrel help frame the opening and closing of the film.
  • Bury Your Gays: Billy and Jim by the end of the film are dead and buried.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Luther Driggers, as he carries enough poison to kill the entire town and threatens to use it when his lunch isn't very good, every day, for ten years. Oh and he also attaches horse flies to himself with string.
  • Coup De Grace: One of the central questions of the trial is whether Jim fought back in self-defense or whether he executed his victim. Near the end, Jim admits to John, it was a little of both.
  • Drag Queen: Lady Chablis, playing herself.
  • Drink Order: Billy loved his Wild Turkey.
  • Fake American: Jude Law playing southern boy Billy Hanlon.
  • The Film of the Book
  • Good Ol' Boy: Many different flavors are sampled, the most classic example of the trope being Jim's lawyer Sonny.
  • Hollywood Voodoo: Averted as the voodoo-practicing Minerva has no spells, carries no voodoo dolls and doesn't battle with Baron Samedi. That doesn't however stop her from being a hauntingly creepy character.
  • Most Writers Are Writers: A journalist main character, natch.
  • Real Person Cameo: The Judge is played by Sonny Seiler, the attorney for Jim Williams during the trials.
    • Also a Real Dog Cameo, the bulldog, was Georgia state's actual mascot at the time, Uga. (Though this was acutaly Uga V, son of Uga IV whom is portrayed.)
  • Pimped-Out Dress: From the Christmas party to Lady Chablis to the Alpha Phi Beta party to the Married Ladies Card Club, this trope is all over this movie.
  • Shrine to Self: One patrician widow, in the words of Jim at the Christmas party, "Made her boudoir a shrine to herself."
  • Sweet Home Alabama: While painted as eccentric, they are a very happy-go-lucky bunch and never genuinely creepy.
  • Very Loosely Based on a True Story
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Midnight_in_the_Garden_of_Good_and_Evil?oldid=1758732"