Chock full of surprises and sublime insight, soon after you've left Cookie's Fortune, you'll crave more.
Cookie’s fortune*** A good batch In Cookie’s Fortune, Patricia Neal plays a pipe-smoking dowager named Cookie who is slowly slipping into senility in the Deep South. Pining for her long-dead husband, Cookie decides to join him prematurely by shooting herself in the head. Her prideful and nasty niece Camille (Glenn Close) finds her body and is horrified. After all, suicide is not lady-like and it will hurt the family’s social standing. To hide the deed, Camille eats Cookie’s suicide note — making it look as if her aunt was robbed and murdered — and swears her mush-brained sister Cora (Julianne Moore) to secrecy. As the police investigate, they find the fingerprints of Cookie’s best friend Willis (Charles S. Dutton) all over her house and on the murder weapon. Camille does nothing to dissuade their suspicion of Willis. She has her eye on Cookie’s estate, regardless of who is jailed for murder. Directed by Robert Altman (M*A*S*H*, Ready to Wear), this film pales in comparison to other Southern classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, but you’ll want to see it anyway for its quirky characters. Altman has gathered a great ensemble cast, including Courtney B. Vance, Liv Tyler, Chris O’Donnell, Lyle Lovett, Ned Beatty and Donald Moffat. The performances are uniformly strong, led by Close as a hybrid of Blanche Dubois and Cruella DeVille, and Dutton as the slow moving, but pure soul (and deserving of a Best Actor nomination). Chock full of surprises and sublime insight, soon after you’ve left Cookie’s, you’ll crave more.