My only prior exposure to Altman was READY TO WEAR - a film I did not survive. COOKIE'S FORTUNE started off only slightly better, with the story held together by whimsy for the first 20 minutes or so. Once Cookie blew her brains out in one of the most uniquely-filmed suicide shots I've ever seen, I was finally hooked.
Unfortunately, that didn't last. I come to films for good, soild story, and that's lacking in abundance here. As with READY TO WEAR, there are so many characters in this film that they crowd each other out - we never know enough to care what happens to any of them. The story lumbers foward until the villian's doomsday draws nigh, the just desserts are served as per the menu - and then everything *dies*, leaving about a half-dozen subplots and love stories crying for their mommy.
Glenn Close's Camille, unfortunately, takes center-stage in all her one-sided glory. We never see anything but her ugliness. A last-minute attempt is made to infuse some humanity into her, but it's cheap and has no follow-through. Close's acting is solid, but she puts more into this character than it can contain, and ultimately turns her into a caricacture. Julianne Moore is as good as she can be in the limited role of Cora, a mousy little thing with an arc that peaks too steeply, too quickly.
And then there's Liv Tyler. Whoever cast her as Emma should be shot. (And yes, that applies to Robert Altman.) She plays this "bad girl" role with the same whispery whininess she brings to INVENTING THE ABBOTS (where it worked) and ARMAGEDDON (where nothing worked). In the hands of Christina Ricci, or Drew Barrymore, or even Winona Ryder, this might have been a compelling character; in Tyler's hands, she's Pamela Abbott with a butch-dyke do and a bunch of unpaid parking tickets.
Rating: 3 out of 10
