April 2, 1999 | Even in his finest efforts as a filmmaker, Robert Altman often comes across as an acerbic cynic who views his characters -- and, to a large degree, his audience -- with equal measures of condescending bemusement and sardonic skepticism. All of which makes it a singularly pleasant surprise to find Altman's name attached to a movie as warm-hearted and generous- spirited as his latest, the serendipitously charming Cookie's Fortune.

Maybe Altman, who turned 74 last February, is mellowing in his golden years. Or, more likely, maybe the richly detailed and deliciously flavorsome screenplay by Anne Rapp brought out his kinder and gentler side. Whatever the reason, Cookie's Fortune is Altman's most abundantly satisfying film since The Player, and comes as close to dead-solid perfect as anything he has done since his glory days of the 1970s.

Credit the story itself for curbing the storyteller's more self-indulgent excesses. Cookie's Fortune is Rapp's first produced screenplay, but the writer hardly qualifies as a novice. She brings to the table several years of experience as a script supervisor -- or, as the job was described in less enlightened times, script girl -- meaning that, more than many veteran screenwriters, she appreciates the importance of making sure that all the disparate parts of a movie can be woven into a seamless whole. Rapp gives Altman plenty of room to do his free-wheeling, controlled-chaos thing. But she also keeps him disciplined with a densely plotted narrative that prevents the maverick moviemaker from coloring outside the lines.

Rapp's cunningly twisty tale snakes through the vividly evoked Deep South atmosphere of Holly Springs, Miss., the sort of place where every citizen asserts the right to hold grudges, closet skeletons and cultivate eccentricities.  The locals tend to take pride in the unremarkableness of their community. "On this site in 1897," reads the sign in a liquor store, "nothing happened."

Jewel Mae Orcutt (Patricia Neal), an aged and uninhibited widow known as Cookie, has reached the point of no longer much caring to remain alone in a world that her beloved husband left behind. She senses that her faculties are starting to fail, and she assumes -- with good reason -- that her closest living relatives, two nieces, won't offer much help down the line. Fortunately, she can count her long-time family retainer, Willis Richland (Charles S. Dutton) as a dear friend and trusted intimate. Unfortunately, Willis becomes the prime suspect when Cookie is found fatally shot in her own bed.

The real culprit is Cookie's overbearingly pretentious spinster niece, Camille (Glenn Close), who makes her aunt's suicide look like foul play because, as she proclaims, "Nobody in this family commits suicide! Suicide is a disgrace!" She impulsively eats Cookie's farewell note, tosses the gun into the backyard -- where, of course, she conveniently finds the "murder weapon" for the police -- and browbeats Cora (Julianne Moore), her simple-minded sister, into supporting her account of discovering a homicide.

One of the more striking things about Cookie's Fortune is the cheeky way it plays the race card. Cookie is white and Willis is black, which allows Altman to have some sly fun early in the movie as he none-too-gently tweaks the audience's expectations of Southern Gothic melodrama. When we first see Willis climbing in through Cookie's kitchen window late one night, we can't help expecting the worst -- and Altman knows we can't help it. You can almost hear the director chortling as he matter-of-factly reveals that Willis' intentions are strictly honorable: He's merely trying to enter the house as quietly as possible, which is not nearly quietly enough, to perform a long-delayed errand.

Later, when the local law enforcers reluctantly arrest Willis, it’s made very clear, very quickly, that Willis' skin color has nothing to do with it. Indeed, the sage cop (Ned Beatty) in charge of the case is absolutely certain that Willis is innocent. (Why? "Because I've fished with him.") On the other hand, racial divides are central to one of the climactic revelations that bring this shaggy-dog story to its delightful conclusion.

Ironically, Willis gets into trouble in the first place because of that late-night errand: By cleaning Cookie's handgun collection, he leaves his fingerprints on the weapon that kills his long-time friend and employer. But circumstantial evidence isn't enough to convince Emma (Liv Tyler), Cora's free-spirited daughter, that Willis is a murderer. So she decides to express her support for her wrongly accused friend by joining him in his jail cell. Fortunately, the door remains wide open, which allows Emma plenty of chances for intimate encounters with Jason (Chris O'Donnell), a deputy who behaves as bumptiously as a younger and less resourceful Barney Fife.

As usual, Altman has assembled a terrific ensemble cast, taking great pains to find just the right actors for even seemingly insignificant parts. Lyle Lovett -- who, it must be admitted, was glaring miscast in Altman's Short Cuts -- is unexpectedly affecting in the small part of Manny Hood, a catfish wholesaler who hires Emma to clean and deliver his wares. He's so hopelessly smitten with the young woman that he spies on her while she sleeps in her van. But Cookie's Fortune is so nonjudgmental in depicting the quirks of its characters that even a Peeping Tom can appear downright sympathetic.
                                                                                               
In fact, Camille is the closest thing to a villain that you'll find here, although she hardly qualifies as conventionally wicked. To be sure, her egocentricity is such that neither shame nor empathy is part of her emotional makeup. As director of Salome for a local church production, she presumes to claim co-authorship of the play with Oscar Wilde. And while she doesn't intend to implicate anyone in Cookie's murder, she doesn't rush to Willis' defense when he's arrested. But Glenn Close makes Camille such a spectacularly flamboyant and comically self-deluding monster that you're too busy laughing at her to make the effort to hate her.

Besides, like just about everyone else in Cookie's Fortune, Camille ultimately dines on a generous serving of just desserts.