Cookie's Fortune

It's not Robert Altman at his finest, by any means, but Cookie's Fortune is still a sure-footed romp from a sly and seasoned craftsman. The "Cookie" of the title, played by aging Hollywood legend Patricia Neal, is the matriarch of an offbeat Holly Springs, Mississippi, family; enjoy her brittle presence while you can, because she soon commits suicide, hoping to join her dear departed husband in the Great Beyond. When her gratuitously evil niece Camille (Glenn Close) discovers the corpse, she's so horrified by the possibility of scandal that she eats Cookie's suicide note, making it look like murder, and says nothing when genial handyman Willis Richland (Charles S. Dutton) is charged with the crime. The film dips into Southern Gothic daffiness and forced racial commentary, but that unfortunate turn only slightly mars its delicious poke at small-town Dixie life. In a way, it's something of a companion piece to Altman's previous film, the Grisham-penned thriller The Gingerbread Man: same Southern setting; same contrived, hamhanded plot; same mix of performances good (Dutton; Ned Beatty) and bad (Close; a rare clunker from Julianne Moore, as Camille's benign idiot of a sister); same invigorating attention to irrelevant detail; same offbeat wit. Recommended. (M. D'Angelo)