Deciding to join her beloved husband in Heaven, frail Cookie (Patricia Neal) lies on her bed and shoots herself through a pillow. The two estranged nieces who find her are, in their separate ways, as crazy as jay birds. Calculating Camille (Glenn Close) quickly decides to disguise the suicide as murder, breaking glass in the gun cupboard and back door. Cowed Cora (Julianne Moore) meekly goes along - even when Willis (Charles S Dutton), a well-read black man who shared Cookie's home, is held for the crime. But remember, the gun cupboard didn't lock... and there are other revelations which help bring things to a satisfying conclusion. A slow, mellow look at small-town life, with something of a mystery plot thrown in, this usually grips the attention, even if the director allows some of his star-studded cast to chew more scenery than others.