Starting as a quirky and lighthearted melodrama, this film focuses on a large Southern family and specifically on Jewel Mae "Cookie" Orcutt's, the family's matriarch, relationship with her odd-job man.
Cookie (Patricia Neal) is the elderly matriarch of this family and the relationship she develops with her odd-jobs man, Willis Richmond (Charles S. Dutton) is a tender one.
However, despondent about her failing health, Cookie resolves to take her own life which she does successfully which takes the film onto somewhat unexpected and entirely welcome turn into straight and dark comedy.
When her niece, Camille Dixon (Glenn Close), finds the body, she is horrified to find tyhat her respected Aunt has decided to take such an undignified exit so decides to fake a burglary and murder.
An investigation into the death forces the local sheriff to reluctantly arrest Cookie's gentle caretaker and friend, and the return to town of the dead woman's grand-niece culminates in the revelation of a number of family secrets.
This results in a madcap plot that involves false arrests, paternity revelations, and all sorts of other intrigue. With a sly, clever script that consistently ratchets up the comic momentum, Cookie's Fortune builds to a delightfully funny climax.
Cookie's Fortune is a Film programme that first aired in 1999 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
