John Berendt's bestseller was an audacious blend of travel journalism and true-life crime that gave a tremendous boost to the tourist industry of Savannah, Georgia. This long and leisurely adaptation by Clint Eastwood is so seduced by the town's sultry, seedy atmosphere - those overstuffed mansions and steamy streets with oak trees draped with Spanish Moss - that the plot sometimes seems incidental. John Cusack plays the naive New York journalist who stumbles into Savannah's sinister underbelly, meeting Kevin Spacey's wealthy antiques dealer and getting lost in a demimonde of soirées, rent boys and murder. Underrated by most critics, this grows in stature and lingers long in the memory even if it is somewhat compromised by the excessive amount of screen time Eastwood affords secondary characters (especially his own daughter, Alison).

A visiting city reporter's assignment suddenly revolves around the murder trial of a local millionaire, whom he befriends.