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Cookie’s Fortune |
  Glenn Close Camille  Julianne Moore Cora Cookie’s Fortune Director : Robert Altman Principal cast Glenn Close Julianne Moore Chris O'Donnell Patricia Neal Charles S. Dutton Duration : 1h 57 |
By Jesse Gale NEW YORK, 19 April 1999 - Cookie’s Fortune, Robert Altman’s new filmic jigsaw puzzle, puts together the pieces of murder in a small Southern town. Each fragment of the picture - this one edged with a ruffled dress, that one with the gleam of a whiskey glass - is striking in its tiny perfection; but put together they become somewhat less. Like a small town or a jigsaw puzzle, the film’s intricacy stands in place of real stakes - there’s never a question of what will happen, and after a lot of careful plotting, not much has really changed. The movie’s performances are beautifully rendered, and fitted together seamlessly. Patricia Neal plays Cookie (née Jewel Mae) Orcutt, a wealthy widow hobbling about her stately home in a grubby sweatshirt. Helping her with the estate is Willis Richland (Charles S. Dutton), whose friendship for his employer seems warmer than the southern Easter sunshine they enjoy together. When Cookie dies, however, her hypocritical-to-the-marrow niece Camille (Glenn Close) and Camille’s flunky sister Cora (Julianne Moore) try to cover up the circumstances so as to grab hold of Cookie’s fortune. Throughout, the film focuses on the small town maneuverings that complicate the murder investigation: flirtations and tacit understandings count for more than evidence. Typical of the film's mode is a moment charged with racial tension, which is then not so much defused as discarded. As the film opens, we find a black man finishing a drunken evening at a blues bar. He steals a bottle of whiskey before careering through the streets; after a few stops, we see him sneak into a big ol' house where he plucks a gun or two from a polished stand. An elderly white woman picks her way down the stairs, frightened and angry -- "goddammit Willis, you woke me up!" The moment's a hoot, but it leads nowhere; we never get a sense of Willis's race as an issue again. Similarly, we never get much of a sense of Emma's (Liv Tyler) past -- she claims to be an outlaw, but that status turns out to be based only on unpaid parking tickets. The skanky looking Manny (Lyle Lovett) peeps into Emma's trailer and hovers around her sleazily, then disappears from the film. No problem turns out to be a problem -- and without something at stake, the film's careful tinkering seems vaguely pointless. What makes Cookie’s Fortune worth watching (probably on your VCR) are the performances; there are several standouts and nary a dog in the lot. Charles S. Dutton’s Willis is delicious; when he absorbs Cookie’s death while hugging their Easter groceries to his chest, his body shows death’s impact like a stain. Patricia Neal, too, creeps up the winding stairs of the house as if she’s ascending to heaven on a walker. Julianne Moore stretches her brilliant talents by playing a dolt, and Liv Tyler just looks great. The most impressive moment of acting may be at the very end of the film, though, when Glenn Close dances in agony, pretending she’s Salome. As in a small town, life can be dull - but it’s the people who surprise you. |
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