This is a smoothly textured movie. I mean there are no cinematic thunderbolts involved. It flows along, rich in atmosphere, switching about half-way through from a tourist's view of Savannian eccentrics to a rather ordinary courtroom drama.
It's one of Eastwood's better movies, about at the level of, say, "Bird" and "Play Misty For Me," although entirely different in content. One of the reasons it's as good as it is, is Bumstead's art direction. I can BELIEVE that this is Jim's or Sonny's home, so tasteful, elegant, and expensive.
Another reason is the performance of Kevin Spacey, who has been good elsewhere but never better than here as the slyly cynical, secretive, supercilious Sonny. (Sorry about that.) God, he's just great. He sort of WAFTS through the first part of the movie, just barely suggesting his bisexuality, enjoying his cigars and reveling in his money and good taste. John Cusack is a reliable sort of everyman. His character, Kelso, evidently didn't exist in the book. I didn't read the book but I did catch excerpts in the New Yorker.
But the character is useful here, the way any newbie is useful when we're being introduced to a relatively odd social world. As a writer sent from New York he has to have things explained to him, and they are thus explained to the viewer. The novice character is a useful shorthand expository device. Eastwood's daughter looks the part and is very attractive.
Sonny's lawyer is a good ol' boy who proclaims proudly to the jury and the judge and the spectators in the courtroom that he has no idea who the writer Hobbes was, but he knows who Perry Mason was. There aren't that many places in the country where ignorance is a point of pride. He kvells he as confesses this, jes' folks, you know? I enjoyed the judge too, played by the guy who was Sonny's real trial lawyer. There are assorted people of unusual character on display. A guy who walks a dog that isn't there. Some guy surrounded by bees. A voodoo priestess. A (gasp) transvestite show girl, Lady Chablis, of whom a little goes a long way. People carry loaded guns to Christmas parties. Sonny and some others are either gay or bisexual. But they are mostly harmless clownish figures. At one point Cusack calls his editor and says, "These people are really weird. New York is boring." Is he supposed to be kidding?
The fact is that they actually are pretty eccentric, at least the particular social circles we get to see, but they're odd in a user-friendly way, polite, articulate, sensitive to the impression they make on an outsider, blasé about most things including murder. "Sonny went and shot someone -- have some crab cakes?"
The thing I remember best about the excerpts from the book is the meeting of the lady's bridge club or whatever it is. It's only a snippet in the film, although an enjoyable one, what with the twittering belles all dressed in pink and white flounces and wearing broad-brimmed hats. In real life, as far as I can recall, these little luncheons could have served as a movie unto themselves. The host's door never opened until the scheduled second. The ladies knew one another and were ushered into the parlor where they chatted about circumscribed topics and were served two extremely potent drinks, so they were all smashed within an hour of their arrival. (No men allowed, of course.) They were served a light lunch after a predetermined interval and left precisely at the same time after each meeting. The whole affair was as highly ritualized as a church service.
Nice use is made of locations. What we see is what might be called the aesthetic component of the community. The houses are painted in pastels and are well kept up. (There's another Savannah that we don't get to see.) Parts of Charleston look picturesque like that too. What we see in the "colored cemetery" isn't voodoo, at least it's not what passes for voodoo in Haiti. It might be called folk spiritualism. The cemetery is an atmospheric place though. Eastwood heightens the effect by having incense smoke drift through the tombstones. (He lapses into another cliché later, when Sonny dies. A man gets dizzy and the camera spins around in a circle.) The statue of the placid young girl, holding a scale in each hand, is a striking image. (She has since been removed for her own safety after the movie was released) The score is by Lennie Niehaus, who used to play an accomplished alto sax in Stan Kenton's band. The courtroom drama is competently done, no more than that.
This is worth watching, if not worth watching too often. I could have done with less of Lady Chablis and her tootsie roll. She isn't as funny or shocking as she and Eastwood seem to think she is.
It's one of Eastwood's better movies, about at the level of, say, "Bird" and "Play Misty For Me," although entirely different in content. One of the reasons it's as good as it is, is Bumstead's art direction. I can BELIEVE that this is Jim's or Sonny's home, so tasteful, elegant, and expensive.
Another reason is the performance of Kevin Spacey, who has been good elsewhere but never better than here as the slyly cynical, secretive, supercilious Sonny. (Sorry about that.) God, he's just great. He sort of WAFTS through the first part of the movie, just barely suggesting his bisexuality, enjoying his cigars and reveling in his money and good taste. John Cusack is a reliable sort of everyman. His character, Kelso, evidently didn't exist in the book. I didn't read the book but I did catch excerpts in the New Yorker.
But the character is useful here, the way any newbie is useful when we're being introduced to a relatively odd social world. As a writer sent from New York he has to have things explained to him, and they are thus explained to the viewer. The novice character is a useful shorthand expository device. Eastwood's daughter looks the part and is very attractive.
Sonny's lawyer is a good ol' boy who proclaims proudly to the jury and the judge and the spectators in the courtroom that he has no idea who the writer Hobbes was, but he knows who Perry Mason was. There aren't that many places in the country where ignorance is a point of pride. He kvells he as confesses this, jes' folks, you know? I enjoyed the judge too, played by the guy who was Sonny's real trial lawyer. There are assorted people of unusual character on display. A guy who walks a dog that isn't there. Some guy surrounded by bees. A voodoo priestess. A (gasp) transvestite show girl, Lady Chablis, of whom a little goes a long way. People carry loaded guns to Christmas parties. Sonny and some others are either gay or bisexual. But they are mostly harmless clownish figures. At one point Cusack calls his editor and says, "These people are really weird. New York is boring." Is he supposed to be kidding?
The fact is that they actually are pretty eccentric, at least the particular social circles we get to see, but they're odd in a user-friendly way, polite, articulate, sensitive to the impression they make on an outsider, blasé about most things including murder. "Sonny went and shot someone -- have some crab cakes?"
The thing I remember best about the excerpts from the book is the meeting of the lady's bridge club or whatever it is. It's only a snippet in the film, although an enjoyable one, what with the twittering belles all dressed in pink and white flounces and wearing broad-brimmed hats. In real life, as far as I can recall, these little luncheons could have served as a movie unto themselves. The host's door never opened until the scheduled second. The ladies knew one another and were ushered into the parlor where they chatted about circumscribed topics and were served two extremely potent drinks, so they were all smashed within an hour of their arrival. (No men allowed, of course.) They were served a light lunch after a predetermined interval and left precisely at the same time after each meeting. The whole affair was as highly ritualized as a church service.
Nice use is made of locations. What we see is what might be called the aesthetic component of the community. The houses are painted in pastels and are well kept up. (There's another Savannah that we don't get to see.) Parts of Charleston look picturesque like that too. What we see in the "colored cemetery" isn't voodoo, at least it's not what passes for voodoo in Haiti. It might be called folk spiritualism. The cemetery is an atmospheric place though. Eastwood heightens the effect by having incense smoke drift through the tombstones. (He lapses into another cliché later, when Sonny dies. A man gets dizzy and the camera spins around in a circle.) The statue of the placid young girl, holding a scale in each hand, is a striking image. (She has since been removed for her own safety after the movie was released) The score is by Lennie Niehaus, who used to play an accomplished alto sax in Stan Kenton's band. The courtroom drama is competently done, no more than that.
This is worth watching, if not worth watching too often. I could have done with less of Lady Chablis and her tootsie roll. She isn't as funny or shocking as she and Eastwood seem to think she is.