I must say this ensemble effort doesn't begin too promisingly -- another glimpse of oddity in a small Southern town, people with names like Jewel Mae and Otis and Lester, something along the lines of Beth Henley's "Crimes of the Heart," which couldn't be saved even by my own sterling performance.
And it is a little casual in establishing its characters. One wonders where the hell it intends going. Patricia Neal does a fine job with the role of the decrepit old "Cookie" Orcutt in the opening scenes. Neal is old but not THAT old and the talent behind the performance still glows under the crusted patina. But then so does everyone else's, and it's a good cast.
Basically the plot is thus: Cookie, knowing she'll join her husband in heaven, cheerfully shoots herself in the head. Two younger cousins -- the too-clever Glenn Close and the exceedingly dumb Julianne Moore -- discover the body and decide to make it look like a murder, suicide being too much of a disgrace for the family to bear.
Then the plot gets off the ground in its casual, laid-back, Mississippian way, kinda like a sleepy dog rousin' itself to slink off the dusty road so the universal harvester can chug past. It's too twisted to detail but there were several times I laughed out loud. "Crimes of the Heart" only got one laugh.
The gags come not just from Anne Rapp's screenplay but from Altman's direction as well. A semi-serious criminal interrogation goes on in the foreground while in the background two officers marvel at the dimensions of a stuffed catfish on the wall. Glenn Close manages to be caught with her hand in the cookie jar -- literally.
I won't go on about it. It's a relaxing and amusing fairy tale.
And it is a little casual in establishing its characters. One wonders where the hell it intends going. Patricia Neal does a fine job with the role of the decrepit old "Cookie" Orcutt in the opening scenes. Neal is old but not THAT old and the talent behind the performance still glows under the crusted patina. But then so does everyone else's, and it's a good cast.
Basically the plot is thus: Cookie, knowing she'll join her husband in heaven, cheerfully shoots herself in the head. Two younger cousins -- the too-clever Glenn Close and the exceedingly dumb Julianne Moore -- discover the body and decide to make it look like a murder, suicide being too much of a disgrace for the family to bear.
Then the plot gets off the ground in its casual, laid-back, Mississippian way, kinda like a sleepy dog rousin' itself to slink off the dusty road so the universal harvester can chug past. It's too twisted to detail but there were several times I laughed out loud. "Crimes of the Heart" only got one laugh.
The gags come not just from Anne Rapp's screenplay but from Altman's direction as well. A semi-serious criminal interrogation goes on in the foreground while in the background two officers marvel at the dimensions of a stuffed catfish on the wall. Glenn Close manages to be caught with her hand in the cookie jar -- literally.
I won't go on about it. It's a relaxing and amusing fairy tale.