Hey, all. Capone in Chicago here with my full-disclosure preamble: If I feel it’s required, I always like to begin my reviews with an admission of some shortcoming regarding the source material of a movie.
If a movie is about a bad or artist or writer that I’m not familiar with, I’ll admit my ignorance. But based on my limited exposure to storyteller and radio show host Garrison Keillor, I feel it my duty to report that I’m not only unfamiliar with his “Prairie Home Companion” radio show, but I’ve never really been interested in hearing it. The idea of the show always seemed too clever for my tastes.
That being said, I had a hoot watching this movie, directed by Robert Altman, about the show’s fictional final broadcast. From a script by Keillor, Altmanhas composed a wonderful and bittersweet symphony of chaos, in which the events of backstage are of equal importance to the on-stage antics.
Kevin Kline is our narrator, a detective-like character named Guy Noir, who acts as security guard for the show, which is going off the air after this broadcast because the theatre it broadcast from (the fabled Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota) has been sold off. There is no story to speak of in Prairie Home Companion, just a series of moments, discussions, songs, comedy, home-spun commercials, and remembrances from Keillor and his players (I’m guessing some will be familiar to faithful listeners). There isn’t a week performer in the bunch.
Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin play the singing and bickering Johnson Sisters, who spend all of the backstage time talking over each other and overwhelming Streep’s daughter Lola, played with maudlin charm by Lindsay Lohan, who writes poems and songs about suicide. As horrifying as it might seem at first, Lohan holds her own with these two exceptional actresses, and if nothing else, the film gives us hope that she is capable of real acting once she gets these gutless teen comedies out of her system. The show’s other singing duo are Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly), whose expertise lies in cowboy songs with borderline-obscene lyrics.
Did I mention that everyone sings their own songs and does so live, and what a difference it makes?
Also slinking around backstage are Maya Rudolph as the very pregnant stage manager and the mysterious Virginia Madsen, wearing a white trenchcoat and apparently only seen by certain players. It takes a while to figure out why she is there, and even after her secret is discovered, I’m not sure it’s clear. Late in the film, Tommy Lee Jones arrives as the Axeman, the buyer and would-be destroyer of the glorious old theatre.
It’s probably best you don’t try to read too much into Prairie Home Companion. This is a comedy at heart, but it pretends to offer life lessons not meant to be taken seriously. Every time someone wants to share with Keillor an important story about their life, he uses it as a means to segue into a made-up tale of how he got started in the radio business.
It takes a while to catch on that this is what he’s doing, but once you do, you’ll understand the comic sense of the film. The biggest shock in the film is how effective Keillor is as an actor. He movies from room to room, from stage to backstage eager to spin his tales and fictional histories. He rejects the idea of making on-air mention that this may be the last show, claiming he’s not a sentimental man, despite the fact that the show is all about nostalgia.
As is often the case in Altman’s films, there is both more and less going on in this movie than you might think. But more importantly, A Prairie Home Companion is a celebration of old-fashioned entertainment and values, while fully acknowledging that change is as much a part of life as death and corporate greed. At 81 years old, Altman has still got it and so does this film.
Capone
