Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
relentless humour throughout from a country cruella, 11 Aug 2000
this is one of the better comedy films to have been produced in the last decade, the choice of actors could not have been better. the outline plot centres around a family torn in all directions. the matriach (cookie) dies, glenn close assumes its suicide and eats the letter fearing the family name will be put to shame. taking the "fortune" with her, close is determined to prove that cookie was murdered and lays the blame with cookies gardener. she then starts a trail of destruction which leads to an unpridictable and chaotic ending. also starring liv tyler and chris o'donnell this film is one you will be ready to watch again as soon as its over.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Southern eccentrics, 22 April 2007
Southern gothic is a pretty tough genre to tackle, especially in movies.
But Robert Altman gave it his best with "Cookie's Fortune," a little black comedy taking place over the Easter weekend. He crammed it with eccentricity, odd twists and likably atypical characters, but the second half gets a bit carried away by self-consciousness weirdess and melodrama.
It's the day before Easter in the Southern town of Holly Springs. Pushy, self-righteous spinster Camille Dixon (Glenn Close) and her mentally challenged sister Cora (Julianne Moore) are rehearsing the Easter play, "Salome." Cora's rebellious daughter Emma (Liv Tyler) has just come back to town, as her naive boyfriend (Chris O'Donnell) has become a cop.
Meanwhile, eccenric matriarch Cookie Orcutt (Patricia Neal) has become obsessed with joining her dead hubby, Buck. So she shoots herself, minutes before her Camille arrives. Fearful of the scandal a suicide would cause ("Suicide is a disgrace! Only crazy people commit suicide!"), Camille fakes a robbery and murder scene.
There's only really one suspect: Willis (Charles S. Dutton), Cookie's handyman/cook/best pal, who lives on the premises and was polishing the guns the night before. As Camille revels in her presumed inheritance, Willis and Emma help piece together the evidence left behind -- and unwittingly unearth some peculiar family secrets.
"Cookie's Fortune" isn't a typical murder mystery. Sure, the cops are ferreting out clues and motives, but Robert Altman creates a town that basically moves along at a steady, languid pace, and nobody really gets worked up -- even a murder doesn't ruffle them enough to make them lock the cells.
And Altman stirs up plenty of black comedy and amusing dialogue ("A condition under which, in times of extreme stress, her blood will not clot properly.You ever seen her suffer from this condition?" "Unfortunately not"). He even manages to weave in some subtle commentary on family and hypocrisy as well as some racism -- nothing explicit, but you can sense it in the way Camille treats Willis.
The problem? At times Altman tries to be melodramatic, but only ends up seeming overwrought. And similarly, he piles on the down-home quirkiness too thickly at times, such as a sheriff announcing that he knows Willis is innocent "'cause... I've fished with him!"
Dutton is the heart and soul of this movie, as the lovable, friendly Willis, who finds himself arrested for a crime he didn't commit just because nobody can think of another suspect. Patricia Neal and Julianne Moore turn in solid performances as the crabby matriarch and the backward Cora (who isn't as "dumb" as she appears). Liv Tyler's performance is a bit stilted, but she evens out by the last half.
"Cookie's Fortune" is one of those movies that is enjoyable despite its flaws. It's too self-consciously quirky at times, but still amusing and well-written.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Altman and a fine ensemble cast make a memorable movie. Charles S. Dutton excels, 21 Feb 2008
Says lawyer Jack Palmer to Emma Duval, explaining the fate of her long gone father, a man she was told years ago had died while doing missionary work in Africa after he'd left his family. "He died alright, about four years later, somewhere down in Alabama in a button factory accident. Seems the hole poker machine broke loose and fell on him. They say he had 273 holes in him before they could get it off."
After all that Emma and her friend Willis Richland have experienced in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, it seems perfectly natural when Emma cries out in exasperation, "Willis, what is wrong with all these people?"
The important point is that they all are part of a movie of great ease and geniality. Cookie's Fortune may be a little sentimental, perhaps, but it is so sweet-natured and natural, and so skillfully presented, that I think the film ranks among Altman's most accomplished works...even if what powers it is an old lady blowing her brains out.
Jewel Mae Orcutt -- Cookie (Patricia Neal) - is aging and increasingly infirm, and she longs for her deceased husband, Buck. When she decides to use one of Buck's pistols to join him, she sets off the avarice of her niece, Camille Dixon (Glenn Close), who pulls along her slow-witted sister, Cora Duval (Julianne Moore). Camille is determined that no hint of a suicide will scandalize the family name, so she makes things look like a burglary gone bad. And, unintentionally, makes it look as if Willis Richland (Charles S. Dutton), a close friend of Cookie's who had worked around the house for her, must have done the deed. Well, there's no way Emma Duval (Liv Tyler) an unconventional young woman who is seriously estranged from her mother, Cora, and her aunt, is going to buy that. In fact, no one, even the local cops, believes that Willis would have burglarized and shot Cookie. For the next hour and a half we're going to take part in Altman's gentle examination of the people in this little cotton-growing town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. We're going to learn how to clean catfish, listen to the blues and, a little off camera, how to make love standing up. We'll encounter Camille's obsession with propriety and look aghast at her firm direction (and rewriting) of Wilde's Salome as a church play for Easter. We're going to see how skilled Lyle Lovett is at gutting a catfish and peeping into Liv Tyler's window at night. We're going to learn a lot about family relationships, even the more informally blessed kind. Most of all, perhaps, we're to learn just how much friendship and family can mean, especially when it's served up with such skill and off-beat humor by Altman and screenwriter Ann Rapp. And as good as all the actors in this ensemble cast are, Charles S. Dutton stands out. He gives a fine performance brimming with likeability and honesty, and without a trace of Hollywood nobility. Willis Richland is a guy who has responsibilities, and that's just fine with him.
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