No spoilers here. The movie is about love, deception, "rapscallionality" and other cool things in a small town, with the kind of cinematography we associate with Altman. Pearl is the right term to use for some of Altman's ensemble pieces: they are layers on layers on layers, and they are built up very slowly, just as a pearl grows.I don't admire everything that Altman has done; there are a number of his movies that didn't rock my socks, but when he hits it, he hits it (as with Short Cuts, McCabe and Mrs Miller, and recently with Prairie Home Companion), with scary precision. You sit there in the theater seat feeling as if not just the director, but the whole cast and crew have you in their sights. Part of this has to be due to Altman's working so much with so many of the same actors. But also, he is simply a great ensemble director.Cookie's Fortune starts out in a quite leisurely fashion, and I had to warn some of my friends not to go to a late night show, but it gets quick fast. While I think the whole cast was great, for me the on-going show-stopper was the performances of Glenn Close and Charles Dutton. It was so clear to me that these two actors, both with considerable stage experience, were having a lot of fun chewing up each other's scenery, and their voice control is what one would expect from them.In Altman's best films there are a multitude of small gem parts, and this is no exception.

We can pretty much always expect something good from Robert Altman, and "Cookie's Fortune" doesn't disappoint. Focusing on a suicide in a Mississippi town and how it reveals some secrets about various people, they make the most of everything. Camille Dixon (Glenn Close) is a character of her own: when she sees that her aunt Cookie (Patricia Neal) has taken her own life (the old woman wants to rejoin her late husband), she tries to make it look like a murder, claiming that only crazy people commit suicide; watching the movie, anyone would have to agree that Camille's the craziest person in the movie.I will assert that this is Charles S. Dutton's best movie yet. As Cookie's caretaker who gets charged with the murder, he shows himself as strong, but not ridiculous. Julianne Moore, Liv Tyler, Chris O'Donnell, Ned Beatty, Courtney B. Vance and Lyle Lovett also have some great lines. The movie mainly goes to show that despite the racism in the South, white people and black people have a lot more exposure to each other than in the rest of the country. Really good.

"Cookie's Fortune" has Robert Altman's patented esprit de corps with ensembles, here representing the intimacy of small town eccentrics, with somewhat amusing intricacies of lies and misunderstandings. The young folks' parts are underwritten so Chris O'Donnell simply doesn't have a lot to do, though Liv Tyler breathes life into her role.Rufus Thomas has an entertaining bit part. Lyle Lovett's role is a charming bit, less lines but more character substance than O'Donnell's.There is wonderful original blues music throughout, with guitar work by The Edge of U2.(originally written 5/9/1999)

Some good acting, some interesting subplots, but a banal main story makes this film something near nadir, If you like actors doing their thing, and you don't care about interesting plots, then this is your kind of movie, but in any other case just skip it.Of the actors, I liked specially Patricia Neal, Glenn Close was a little too much 'theatrical' and people like Lyle Lovett, Chris O' Donnel and Liv Tyler were just ok. Julianne Moore was as good as ever.The ending leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth, maybe because the characters didn't seem real, or either because the improbable plot, I don´t know...