Prairie Home Companion, A (2006)

A Prairie Home Companion, 2006

Directed by Robert Altman
Story by Garrison Keillor and Ken LaZebnik
Screenplay by Garrison Keillor, based on his radio program



Garrison Keillor's radio variety program in Minnesota is adapted for the screen into a fictional telling of its last broadcast. He has found an ideal director in Robert Altman, a filmmaker most comfortable with large, bustling casts. Here, Altman orchestrates the rotating musical acts and backstage dramas of a live broadcast with the wisdom of his 81 years and the energy of a filmmaker half his age. If Altman retires on this one, it's a worthy career-capper.

The Fitzgerald theatre (named for one of the state's favorite sons, F. Scott), is going to be bought and torn down by a Texas tycoon (Tommy Lee Jones), so Garrison Keillor (playing himself) rounds up his favorite musical acts for one last hurrah. Attending the bittersweet homecoming are the Johnson sisters, Rhonda and Yolanda (Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep), the cowboy duo Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly), and many of the actual "Prairie Home Companion" musicians portraying themselves. Tomlin and Streep are nothing short of extraordinary as the sisters haunted by their past who must keep on singing as though their very lives depended on it; their improvisational scenes together are breathlessly engrossing. They are the melancholy yin to Harrelson and Reilly's boisterous yang, a casting match made in doofus-heaven. (I can't believe no one has thought of pairing them sooner.) Their folksy but unforced banter culminates with a ditty called "Bad Jokes", one I'd love to see nominated and performed on the Oscar telecast next year.

Rounding out the gilded cast are Kevin Kline as the humorously-named semi-narrator Guy Noir, Virginia Madsen as an ethereal mystery visitor, and Maya Rudolph as the put-upon stage manager. Unfortunately, the only cast member who stumbles is Lindsay Lohan, not quite convincing as Streep's gloomy daughter, but this I blame more on the poorly fleshed-out character (teenager = depressed) than her performance. The film also fumbles a bit when the story takes an ill-fitting turn towards the supernatural. Still, Prairie is as warm and involving as Gosford Park was cold and detached, and makes for a graceful and satisfying movie experience.

Grade: B+