robert altman's cookie's fortune is that rare movie that does not depend on sentimentality to be uplifting and to make its viewers feel good . 
it is a sunny , delightful , dreamy comedy , filled with lovely performances , skillful direction and topped off with an understated , clever , extraordinary script . 
as this is an ensemble piece , it is forced to start of slowly as it introduces us to its characters , all of them residing in a southern town called holly springs . 
first we meet willie ( charles s . dutton ) , an honest man with a slight drinking habit . 
we then see that willie takes care of an elderly lady nicknamed cookie , who is slowly losing her grip on sanity and is being filled with loneliness , despair , and want of her dead husband . 
we cut to camille ( glenn close ) who is obsessively directing a play with her sister cora ( julianne moore ) . 
then we briefly get acquainted with emma ( liv tyler ) , an apparent relative of cookie , who is a down-but-not-out teen outcast , still full of love and hope even though she has no real place to live . 
we also fleetingly see emma's lover jason ( chris o'donnell ) , an ambitious but far too excitable young cop . 
we are now about one quarter through the two hour picture , and robert altman decides that it is time to set the plot in motion . 
we see the ecstatic cookie stare hopefully at a picture of her husband . 
she exclaims " here i come ! " 
and then puts a pillow to her face and shoots herself . 
soon after , her niece camille stops by to get a fruit salad bowl , comes upstairs , finds cookie dead and flips out . 
convinced that suicide is a disgrace and that she will have none of that in her family , she eats the suicide note and convinces her slightly slow ( yet sweet ) sister that it was a murder . 
she makes sure that she stages it like a murder as well ; scattering jewelry all over the floor , breaking a few cabinets , windows and doors , and then throwing the gun out in the back yard . 
the only reasonable suspect is willie , who immediately gets taken into custody , and put in a jail cell ( they all know he didn't do it , so the cell stays open and he plays scrabble with the sheriff and the faithful emma ) . 
meanwhile , the unperturbed camille continues her none-too-subtle manipulations trying to further cover up for the murder while at the same time making her easter play a success . 
so begins cookie's fortune , a film aptly described by critic scott renshaw as " a southern spin on fargo , " except that this one is far funnier and much more enjoyable than the coen brothers' darker , somewhat disturbing and slightly overrated escapade . 
robert altman's slight picture is in some ways reminiscent of something like midnight in the garden of good and evil as well , in that both films focus ( on and off ) on the eccentricities of the residents in a southern us town . 
indeed , most of the characters in cookie's fortune are loads of fun to observe , and a portion of them are fascinating and surprisingly multi- dimensional . 
glenn close turns in an insubstantial ( in terms of her career ) but magnificent performance as the conniving camille and is also the source of a good portion of the many laughs that we enjoy in this movie , and she is perfectly cast as the prolific " aunt alexandria " character , endlessly obsessed with family dignity . 
the equally essential role of willie is handled with an intangible grace by veteran thespian charles s . dutton ( mimic , a time to kill ) 
there is nothing like a movie which leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside hours , even days after the film ends . 
cookie's fortune is such a movie . 
i loved the light , kindhearted approach altman ( whose last project was the dark , intense drama the gingerbread man ) took towards the tricky subject matter . 
i enjoyed the talented ensemble cast . 
i even liked the trite " in the south everybody is related to everybody " cliche that is inevitably employed by the time this movie draws to a close . 
i'm not sure why cookie's fortune had such an all-around pleasing effect on me . 
perhaps it's that good ol' southern charm .