A Prairie Home Companion Review

I like Robert Altman, but not every movie he's ever made.

I am not a big fan of the radio show--though I guess you could say I respect it and appreciate the tradition Garrison and others are continueing.

I do not like Country Music.

As the move went into production-- and I wondered why Altman was doing this one first rather than a film centering around the ART world which would be a nice follow up for his fine film about the dance world;  The Company.

I asked a friend about the radio show and some of the recurring characters so that when the movie came out, I could GET it.    You really don't need to know much about the radio show except that there are some odd characters that pop in and out.. and that happens in the movie.  Don't let it throw you.

Robert Altman's A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION is a warm, affectionate, smooth brew of a movie that many will be utterly charmed by.   I found dozens of moments in the film that made me smile and you'll probably have a few more if your a fan of Garrison Keillor's radio program.

If you pay attention to technical details you will marvel at the overlapping dialogue that becomes like music and glides around several scenes like perfect poetry. As iambic pentameter is to Shakespeare , so is the over-lapping dialogue to Altman. Others however will shrug and say... ‘uh.. okay... so what'.

People have been shrugging and saying so-what to Robert Altman movies for years. Sometimes the movies break out of the so-what Altman pack (MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, THE PLAYER, SHORT CUTS, GOSFORD PARK), but that averages out to be about 1 ALTMAN movie every 7 years.

If you aren't an Altman fan, a Prairie Home Companion fan, or a devoted follower of one of the actors in the film, this movie is going to be one where you scratch your head and simply don't get why people like it so much.

Maybe the wonderfully funny and very clever "duct tape" sequence, the charming musical numbers, like the slightly off-color Bad Jokes number and several well written, beautifully performed dialogue scenes will make this movie a hit with audiences.

I hope so, but a warm cozy movie isn't necessarily one that people are going to talk about and interest other people in rushing out to see. Movies don't get much time to slowly build an audience these days. If people don't rush out and see it the first few weekends, it disappears from screens and is gone for several months until it reappears as a DVD.

Altman movies are devoted to the actors who are in them. Often, the actors are portraying interesting, quirky characters. Often the characters tell good stories-but the stories are an extension of the characters-and don't come first.  The stories never come first in an Altman movie and that's why they meander and frustrate some audiences.

In Altman movies the frame is around the characters of the story, NOT the story itself.  It might be a weekend in an English Manor, it might be a few weeks in a Korean medical camp, it might be about the last night of a long running radio program named Prairie Home Companion.

And of course what the movie is really about, is passing on-- getting old and fading away-- passion on, dying.   It's part of life and it doesn't have to be tragic, it is something that happens to everyone.

So it was fitting, that Altman's very last movie... was this one.  

Prairie Home Companion is not a movie that needs to break rules and soar into completely uncharted territory. It's not going to excite you as an experimental or particularly out there risk taker.

But it is an Altman movie. There are chances being taken, there is a subversive element to it as well. Since it has got lots of characters,country music, and Lily Tomlin, you're going to either hear comparisons of this film to NASHVILLE. There's little resemblance between the movies.

I found myself often enchanted, amused and entertained by Altman's film. A lot of it simply couldn't have been done any better than it is. You have characters from the radio show playing backstage supporting characters in this movie. That's the part that is going to seem a bit too much of a conceit or a strain style-wise. The dangerous woman character (Virginia Madsen) for instance, is used differently by Altman in the movie and that may not sit well with fans of the radio program (but I don't know) and those who don't know the radio show, will see it as awkward and forced, a bit strange and not necessary.

The majority of the movie is a loose concert movie. A LAST WALTZ kind of thing where we watch a live radio show being performed, moving about with the character backstage and onto the stage. There's talk about it being the very last radio show of the series. The radio station has been bought up by a Texan conglomerate, the theater is being torn down to become a parking garage. So what are losing? A rag-tag radio vaudeville family is being broken up, but there's a show to put on and everyone is far to busy to get sentimental about it.

Death is after-all a part of life. The death of a radio show, the death of a tradition, a landmark, even the death of someone we know is all part of life, and life goes on.

We might see whole songs and bits from the live radio show, or only small bits of what's going on, on stage. We are usually cutting away from one scene to another one that has more promise and interest than what we are leaving. What do I mean? Well we see and hear the character played by veteran actor L.Q. Jones do a verse and chorus of a pretty standard country song and rather than hear all of it, we cut away to a backstage scene that's a lot more interesting than listening to the entire performance on stage. It's all taking place at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul.

We are introduced to the show and the theater by Guy Noir (on the radio show he is a hard boiled detective) who is the show's security supervisor. He moves around and introduces us to characters. Kevin Kline adds some humorous broad physical comedy to the character. He's a bit of a klutz who has a habit of getting his fingers caught in drawers and things. Kline makes us laugh, but he's more a caricature than most of the people we meet. Almost ghost like is the Dangerous Woman character played by Virginia Madsen. At first we think she might be present to assassinate someone, especially since she is dressed in a long trench coat. Later we realize she has a different function. Guy is also waiting for the arrival of the Corporate Guy who will be shutting everything down. Guy is hoping he might be able to convince him not to end the show. Eventually, the Man played in a no-nonsense style by Tommy Lee Jones shows up. He's a cold corporate head chopper. These characters don't feel real or human. They aren't, they are all characters from the radio show. If you aren't a fan of the show however, you might not get that, and you might simply some of the scenes they are a part of as awkward.

I find it fascinating the character who DO NOT perform on the radio show are more caricatures than the ones who do perform on the show.  It's the show-biz family that matters, the risk takers, the ones who put it out there and give to an audience.

Garrison Keillor who also wrote the script under Altman's supervision, plays a version of himself as the host and star announcer of the radio program, G.K. He has a wonderfully warm smooth charisma that hypnotizes you. The musical duo of Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly) seem like they have been partners and friends for years. We are on to them and it's a treat. Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep play the singing duo of Rhonda and Yolanda Johnson. Lindsey Lohan plays Streep's teenage daughter who hopes to perform music someday, but her poetry is obsessed with suicide.

Their over-lapping conversations create some of the sweetest sounds you'll hear. Notice in the backstage overlapping conversations we are shown how Altman lets his camera glide and pan around the dressing room, how the characters are framed against mirrors, creating multiple images and frames within frames. Its subtle and expert and what makes Altman great.

We gradually learn more about relationships and characters by how they converse and then perform together. We are both part of the performance and watching it. We see how live radio is created by musicians and skilled announcers, technicians and sound effects men. We meet the pregnant stage manager (Maya Rudolph who keeps people moving and on-time, sometimes interrupting conversations to make it happen with help from the backstage guy (Tim Russell). There is the makeup lady (Sue Scott and the sound effects man (Tom Keith, and the bandleader (Rich Dworsky. We meet the performers, spend time with them and pay attention to the details because we have been told, this is it. This is the last time-which makes us notice the details.

And most of those details are wonderfully, warmly shown to us by the actors, Altman and his crew.

There are no big revelations, there are no car-chases or breath-taking stunts. In the end there's a an epilogue. It's a framing device, and we know it's a framing device and we appreciate the effort to wrap it all up in a nice package because it's a movie and we are the audience, and it's time for it to end.

Has it been about anything in particular? Yes and no. It's been the world to the characters we have been watching. Their world, became my world for a little while and I'm richer for the experience. Glad I spent some time in this place, with these people.

And that's Altman for you.

I wish he was around for an encore.


4 and a half stars rounded up !!!