Cookie's Fortune

source: Cookie's Fortune

The death of an old woman in a small Mississippi town leads to some minor intrigue. It gets off to a slow start, and doesn't really get interesting until the death of Cookie. And even after that, nothing much happens to hold one's interest. The characters are so stupid that one doesn't care what happens to them. The logic given for Close covering up the suicide of Cookie is absolutely ridiculous. The characters' blatant disregard for police procedures is meant to be funny but it's totally idiotic. A good cast is wasted. Altman has directed some great films, but by the time he made this his career was in decline and he does little to breathe life into a weak script.

Cookie's Fortune is another ensemble character piece from Robert Altman, although it's of a lot less magnitude than some of his previous works. The story centers around a group of citizens in the quaint town of Holly Springs, who are thrown into disarray by the sudden death of Cookie Orcutt (Patricia Neal). Altman's scope is much more intimate than some of his other ensemble pieces, and it fits the characters nicely. The whole thing, accompanied by a nice blues score, has this quaint and relaxed atmosphere to it. This makes the film move by at a slower pace, but I never really felt like it dragged or anything, it just sort of coasted along. There are several characters that we focus on, from Cookie's nieces Camille and Cora (Glenn Close and Julianne Moore) to her best friend Willis (Charles S. Dutton) to the police (Chris O'Donnell, Ned Beatty and a few others) to Cora's estranged daughter Emma (Liv Tyler), who has coincidentally just strolled back into town after being gone for a while. Cookie's death sends waves through the small community and turns everyone's situations upside down, resulting in comedic strides and a police investigation. When focusing on the individual characters, I definitely enjoyed myself most of the time, especially when it came to the erratic and revoltingly vain Camille (played with utter theatrical delight by Close) and the eternally laid-back Willis, but I don't think the script managed to bring the characters together in an entirely fluid manner. This especially became a problem when the film was focused on Camille and Cora, who felt as though they were in an entirely different film. The majority of it had that bluesy, Southern atmosphere to it but then you get to the scenes with the two of them and it's like they're in a Tennesse Williams play. The characters are supposed to be a contrast to the rest of the ensemble, but the tones of their sections don't mesh at all with the rest of the film and it's quite distracting. The cast for the most part does a fine job, Close being the only one who impressed me on any major level, but Tyler and O'Donnell stick out like sore thumbs, the flattest pieces of wood in an otherwise quite alive ensemble. I think my main problem with it though came from the final act, which is just a bizarre disaster. Out of nowhere the investigation starts turning up revelations of different familial bonds and lies from the past, but they truly come out of nowhere and ultimately add nothing to the film. It gets so confusing and incoherent in the final act, I don't have a clue what possessed writer Anne Rapp. It drags the film down considerably, but the rest of it was alright, if relatively insignificant.

I'll fess up, Altman ranks high with me and has for a long time. This is far from his best work -- but also far, far above your average bear, er, rather... average film. It has much to recommend; many fine performances, a complex storyline; it will request a little patience from you -- be so kind as to grant it. Patience lies at the heart of this film; not the high-jinks and rapid-fire action of most movies. Kindness gets lost, and many deeper human qualities, too -- when people or a culture push patience out of the way. Altman seems to know this, to celebrate patient people, sensible people. But there are plenty of good jokes, visual, verbal, plot-involved. Relax and laugh, let things develop. You might even laugh pretty hard -- and happily. I suppose this film could be called Capra-esque, and thus old-fashioned, even nostalgic -- not a good fit with the tumult of violence and dishonesty which characterized the media's portrayal of the nineties. Too bad. Rent the video; or buy the video and watch it with your kids and later with the grandkids. People complain about too much violence in the cinema and then ignore a film like this -- and many of these people are critics! Here's the full panoply of human life, young, middle-aged, and elderly, all interesting, all central to the story. What a fine thing!

My only prior exposure to Altman was READY TO WEAR - a film I did not survive. COOKIE'S FORTUNE started off only slightly better, with the story held together by whimsy for the first 20 minutes or so. Once Cookie blew her brains out in one of the most uniquely-filmed suicide shots I've ever seen, I was finally hooked. Unfortunately, that didn't last. I come to films for good, soild story, and that's lacking in abundance here. As with READY TO WEAR, there are so many characters in this film that they crowd each other out - we never know enough to care what happens to any of them. The story lumbers foward until the villian's doomsday draws nigh, the just desserts are served as per the menu - and then everything *dies*, leaving about a half-dozen subplots and love stories crying for their mommy. Glenn Close's Camille, unfortunately, takes center-stage in all her one-sided glory. We never see anything but her ugliness. A last-minute attempt is made to infuse some humanity into her, but it's cheap and has no follow-through. Close's acting is solid, but she puts more into this character than it can contain, and ultimately turns her into a caricacture. Julianne Moore is as good as she can be in the limited role of Cora, a mousy little thing with an arc that peaks too steeply, too quickly. And then there's Liv Tyler. Whoever cast her as Emma should be shot. (And yes, that applies to Robert Altman.) She plays this "bad girl" role with the same whispery whininess she brings to INVENTING THE ABBOTS (where it worked) and ARMAGEDDON (where nothing worked). In the hands of Christina Ricci, or Drew Barrymore, or even Winona Ryder, this might have been a compelling character; in Tyler's hands, she's Pamela Abbott with a butch-dyke do and a bunch of unpaid parking tickets. Rating: 3 out of 10

What would it have been like had Tennessee Williams -- for some unfathomable reason -- been hired to write a script for "The Andy Griffith Show?" This is hardly a pressing question for either amusement or intellectual debate, but the answer would surely be something very much like Robert Altman's COOKIE'S FORTUNE. This is undoubtedly Altman's most accessible and likable effort. It is set in Holly Springs, Mississippi, but it could just as easily be Mayberry, North Carolina. Both are in a fantasy world just north of Sitcomville and across the ridge from Capratown. In Altman fashion, Holly Springs is populated with variety of oddball folk, but in contradiction to Altman tradition, they mostly tend to be free of cynicism and malice. Andy, Opie, Barney and Aunt Bee would feel right at home. Indeed, there is even a town jail where the cell doors are left unlocked, all the better to allow visitors to come and go as they please. The hypothetical contribution by Tennessee Williams is nonetheless apparent as well. There is a murder mystery, a suicide, a bit of gore, a dash of sex, some racial consciousness and Glenn Close, whose character might be a second cousin to Blanche DuBois. But these elements of dark and twisted madness aren't all that removed from the cheerful eccentricity that is a trademark of fictional smalltown America. As such, COOKIE'S FORTUNE falls somewhere between SHADOW OF DOUBT and THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN in its representation of bucolic life; there is a cheerful silliness to the characters, but tragedy darkens the edges just a tad. No one would ever accuse Altman of being the sentimental type. His screen career has consisted largely of taking pot shots at the American landscape, aiming to reveal hypocrisy behind everything from patriotism to idealism, with his preferred vehicle of deconstruction being the conventions of various movie genres. He has taken a wrecking ball to everything from the backstage musical to film noir to westerns to sci-fi. Yet he approaches the Capraesque vision of smalltown American with a gentle good humor, refraining from indulging in either parody or satire. COOKIES FORTUNE is probably the only Altman film where the characters are characters, i.e., loopy individuals, not archetypes to be debunked or mocked. I'm an admirer of Altman's films, but I have to admit that I am hard pressed to think of any other instance where I felt actual affection for any of his characters. Alas, Altman's visit to Holly Springs is no doubt a side trip in the director's journey from one "important" film to the next. A chance to stretch his legs a bit before getting back to the serious business of showing how corrupt the world is. That's a shame, because Holly Springs is a right nice little place to visit.

From a director that made the extremely clever "The Player", "Cookie" was a major disappointment. After five minutes, I already felt manipulated by the trite dialogue. I guess this was supposed to be a sort of character study, but the characters were never developed, seemed one dimensional, were uninteresting, and worst of all, could not act. I like Charles Dutton, but he is more suited to television. Liv Tyler is cute, but needs to stay off the screen, or at least not be given so many lines. All in all, this is the only film I can remember seeing that actually made me angry at the filmmakers. However, the other members of the audience seemed to like it, so maybe it's just me!

Throughout the long trajectory of his career, Robert Altman was known for interweaving multiple plots and characters within the context of a given theme. Think the brotherhood of the country music community in "Nashville" or the detachment of contemporary California life in "Short Cuts." But in 1999, Altman tried something a bit unique – he directed a motion picture with a plot. One plot. One story. A comparatively small cast of characters. It was called, "Cookie's Fortune," and it's this month's Buried Treasure. With a clever screenplay by Anne Rapp, "Cookie's Fortune" tells the story of Willis (Charles S. Dutton), a handyman wrongly accused of murder in a small Mississippi town. His widowed employer (Patricia Neal) commits suicide at the outset, and her daughters decide to disguise the shooting as a murder in a vain attempt to preserve the family's reputation. Since Willis had just cleaned the widow's guns the night before, his fingerprints are all over them. And there you have the most plot structure you'll ever find in an Altman film. What follows this sullen and morose setup is Altman's funniest picture since "M*A*S*H" in 1970. You see, everyone in the town knows Willis couldn't possibly commit murder. The jailer (a young Chris O'Donnell) consistently leaves the cell door open, and the sheriff (a fantastic Ned Beatty) plays cards with him – in the cell! You see, Beatty's character knows Willis is innocent because, "I've fished with him" – which seems to be his quintessence test for everyone he knows. But, as in every Altman film, there's one character who doesn't quite fit. One who takes things more seriously than the others. Remember how pathetically dangerous Robert Duvall's Major Frank Burns seemed in "M*A*S*H" (as opposed to the maniacal buffoon Larry Linville played on the long-running television series)? It was as though the Major Burns character walked on the set from another movie – just to give the audience a jolt; to let us know this is war, and war is real. In "Cookie's Fortune," Glenn Close plays Camille, the theatrical and mildly deranged daughter of the deceased – a slightly more comical version of her wicked turn in "Fatal Attraction." Camille is the smartest character in the picture, but she's also the one who doesn't belong; the one who, in a panic attack, might just turn this lovable comedy into a dreary exercise in unhinged madness. Fortunately, Altman is a skilled enough director to not allow this to happen, but my does he dangle it closely (pun intended). Had Glenn Close played her role ever so slightly more unsettled, the entire film would have been ruined. Altman walks a fine line allowing Camille to exaggerate her pomposity, but then her function seems to be to remind us that this is murder, and murder is real. Still, Altman never loses sight of the fact that "Cookie's Fortune" is a comedy, dark though it may be. The script is peppered with well-drawn characters, and the acting is first-rate – particularly Ned Beatty as the sheriff, and also Liv Tyler as Camille's desperado niece, whose boyfriend just so happens to be Chris O'Donnell's maladroit jailer. Altman is a master handling these intertwining characters, as he doles out information in small enough doses for us to completely process their connections, and for us to understand the soul of the town in which they regale. Unfortunately, "Cookie's Fortune" was released during the spring doldrums – that period between the Oscars and the summer blockbusters, when the studios trot out the fare they don't think anyone will pay to see. By the time the Oscars rolled around that year, the talk was all about "Magnolia," "American Beauty," "The Cider House Rules," and "The Green Mile." "Cookie's Fortune" was simply a forgotten footnote to American cinema in 1999. And that's a shame. You need to seek out this one. It's funny, touching, and intelligent – and easily one of Robert Altman's ten best films.

I have to be honest and confess that I'm not a Robert Altman fan . His movies suffer from being cluttered with too many characters having their own sub stories which detract from the narrative COOKIE'S FORTUNE can be used as a good example . For the first half hour of the movie we're introduced to the characters of a small deep south town called Holly Springs , yes that's right a film that lasts two hours wastes quarter of its running time on umpteen different characters . After this has taken place an event happens which sets up the main plot of where a black man is blamed for something he didn't do and if you're able to stay awake at this point you're doing well Did I mention this was a comedy ? I thought I have to mention it since some people might be confused that this might be some type of hard hitting drama like IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT and the movie continues in the same type of unlikely manner of blackly comical characterisation and plot twists . But if you like Altman you'll probably like this movie . I don't much and I didn't much

"Cookie's Fortune" is perhaps the most inane and useless movies I have ever watched. Definitely NOT a watershed event in cinematographic history. On the CZTV website, 21 percent of viewers rated it as "waste of time" whereas 72 percent rated it as "excellent," with almost nothing in between. I don't get it. Do YOU get it? I certainly don't get it. Had this film not have had Liv Tyler in it, I don't think I would have watched it to its pathetic and boring finale. Definitely a lot of material for a future episode of MST3K here. I mean, it takes just as much time/effort/money/etc. to make a good movie as it does to make a movie like this, so why did they even bother producing it? I guess CZTV doesn't have a whole lot of money to buy any good films, so all we get here are reruns of Dallas, and garbage like this. Possibly the only good thing I have to say about this movie is the fact that it doesn't copy the standardised model of most American movies. No helicopters, no explosions, no car chases, and no unrealistically exaggerated characters. In fact, the characters were all too ordinary. Even a video of some guy playing chess on his computer would have been more fascinating than this movie. It definitely has its own genre: Useless. I mean, even my writing this comment is a useless waste of time.