Plenty of oddball characters make this memorable, as it explores the taboo of homosexuality amid pistol-toting, tea-sipping gentile Southern aristocracy. Spacey plays nouveau-riche Georgia gentleman Jim Williams perfectly. Cusak’s naivete is a bit unbelievable for supposedly streetwise New York writer John Kelso, but his part plays out well. Great supporting roles by Jude Law as Jim’s lover Billy, Jack Thompson as Jim’s lawyer Sonny, and the Lady Chablis as a flamboyant version of her everlovin’ self. Very entertaining, if a bit long (155 min.)

The book is much, much better. Eastwood’s daughter plays a character in the book, and it seemed to me like some of the plot changes had more to do with giving her more screen time than making the story better. For that matter, I don’t think any of the plot or character changes from the book were positive. The best aspect for me was one of the DVD extras that showed some of the real places in Savannah featured in the story.

This movie is much alike Gosford Park, only that movie was a lot more mysterious and funny. Anyway I can’t really judge this, because I turned off the dvd after the first hour, and couldn’t get exactly what was the logic of this movie.