Director: Robert Altman
Screenplay: Anne Rapp
Director of Photographer: Toyomichi Kurita
Original Music: David A Stewart (with Annie Lenox = The Eurythmics)
Production Designer: Stephen Altman
Editor: Abraham Lim
Camille Dixon: Glenn Close
Cora Duvall: Julianne Moore
Emma Duvall: Liv Tyler
Jason Brown: Chris O'Donnell
Willis Richland: Charles S Dutton
Jewel Mae "Cookie" Orcutt: Patricia Neal |
Robert Altman is not the type of director whose work is easily categorised. His films include "McCabe and Mrs Miller", a western; "The Long Goodbye", a film noir; the classic war comedy "M*A*S*H"; the contemporary satire "The Player"; and of course the one and only - "Nashville". What does distinguish Altman's work is the skill with which he interweaves the stories of a wide variety of characters; the integral role of music; and the distinct and singular point of view through which he tells his stories.
His latest film "Cookie's Fortune" does not disappoint in any of these areas - it is a delightful black comedy of manners, set in the deep south, with all the resonances of Tennessee Williams - warm, wet climate, close families, pride, rivalry, secrets, betrayal, and an underlying longing for the more genteel and prosperous days before the Civil War - when men could be men and women could be ladies.
Cookie, an elderly widow, lives in her fading family home surrounded by mementos of her husband, a high living gambler. As the matriarch of Holly Springs, a former cotton town, cultural centre and the home of thirteen Confederate generals (an actual real live town), she cheerfully flouts convention by sharing her home with her one true friend, Willis Richland, a middle-aged black man. Her eccentric behaviour has estranged her from her two nieces Camille, a domineering woman who loves to control everyone and everything and who considers herself to be the keeper of the family honour, and Cora, a gentle, naive woman who never questions that Camille is right. Cora's daughter, Emma, who has just returned to Holly Springs, has also been ejected from the family fold, not least because she shares, with Willis, an affection for Cookie and for whisky! And there are a host of other colourful characters who are all brought together when Cookie dies and murder is suspected.
I enjoyed this film immensely. It is quirky, humourous and unexpected in its resolution; it is peopled with a host of wonderfully eccentric characters, none of whom you can completely dislike; there is some wonderful dialogue; and a wonderfully moody blues score draws the whole together.
For me, "Cookie's Fortune" provided a wonderful antidote to the all too predictable mainstream Hollywood fare.
|
