In the late 1990s, Robert Altman directed a series of films set in the South, all of them with Southern Gothic elements. "Kansas City" and "The Gingerbread Man" were throwbacks to the crime thriller film noir, while "Cookie's Fortune" was a mostly comic yarn about the suicide of a beloved widow in a small Mississippi town and the efforts of the local police department to solve the "crime" when it's re-staged to look like a murder.
The tone of "Cookie's Fortune" is like that of William Faulkner when he was writing books like "The Reivers." If the film seems to have nowhere to go and takes its time getting there, that's not necessarily a criticism. That's part of the Southern tall-tale culture, and if you've ever spent time in that part of the country, you know what it's like to sit on a porch, drinking overly sweetened iced tea, and listen to colorful characters take 20 minutes to tell a story that could be told in 5.
The cast includes Patricia Neal (Cookie) and Charles S. Dutton, as the widow and the chief suspect accused in her apparent murder; Glenn Close, in an overwrought performance as a relative of Cookie who wants to cover up Cookie's suicide so as not to tarnish the family name and get her hands on Cookie's fortune in the process; and Julianne Moore as Close's mentally slow sister who ends up not being quite as slow as we thought by the time the movie's over. There are also parts for Liv Tyler, Chris O'Donnell, Ned Beatty and a completely unnecessary Lyle Lovett. The fortune of the film's title is a red herring that would have made Alfred Hitchcock proud, and the investigation itself fades into the background as the characters become the point of interest. As he would show in his all-out murder mystery from two years later, "Gosford Park", Altman isn't nearly as interested in the destination as he is the journey to it.
Grade: B+
The tone of "Cookie's Fortune" is like that of William Faulkner when he was writing books like "The Reivers." If the film seems to have nowhere to go and takes its time getting there, that's not necessarily a criticism. That's part of the Southern tall-tale culture, and if you've ever spent time in that part of the country, you know what it's like to sit on a porch, drinking overly sweetened iced tea, and listen to colorful characters take 20 minutes to tell a story that could be told in 5.
The cast includes Patricia Neal (Cookie) and Charles S. Dutton, as the widow and the chief suspect accused in her apparent murder; Glenn Close, in an overwrought performance as a relative of Cookie who wants to cover up Cookie's suicide so as not to tarnish the family name and get her hands on Cookie's fortune in the process; and Julianne Moore as Close's mentally slow sister who ends up not being quite as slow as we thought by the time the movie's over. There are also parts for Liv Tyler, Chris O'Donnell, Ned Beatty and a completely unnecessary Lyle Lovett. The fortune of the film's title is a red herring that would have made Alfred Hitchcock proud, and the investigation itself fades into the background as the characters become the point of interest. As he would show in his all-out murder mystery from two years later, "Gosford Park", Altman isn't nearly as interested in the destination as he is the journey to it.
Grade: B+