A Prairie Home Companion
Written by Garrison Keillor
Directed by Robert Altman
Picturehouse
2006
Rating:


Thirty years ago, the setup for "A Prairie Home Companion" would've incited director Robert Altman to cynicism and rebellion: an antiquated radio show listened to by "hundreds" of people since "Jesus was in the third grade" has been cancelled by a Texas Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) who wants to turn the station into a parking lot. Rather than turn the show's cancellation into his own version of the Altman-esque "Cradle Will Rock," the 81-year-old director takes this occasion to deliver an elegy to the "old" way of doing things and a celebration of the communal art of storytelling.

Garrison Keillor is the host of NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion" and here he writes a fictional account of his show's cancellation and plays a version of himself known as "GK." GK can't raise ire about his show's end and refuses to give a eulogy during its last night on-air. After all, as GK says, "Every show is your last show."

For "Companion's" series finale, GK has brought together Carter Family-like sister duet Yolanda and Miranda Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) and the bad joke-cracking singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly) to join the show's in-house Guys All-Star Shoe Band. Backstage, pregnant stage manager Molly (Maya Rudolph), Donna (Sue Scott) and Al (Tim Russell) attempt to keep the show running smoothly. Meanwhile security guard/P.I. Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) provides baroque, hardboiled narration and investigates a Dangerous Woman (Virginia Madsen) who appears to have arrived at the show on wings of desire.

"Companion" rigorously adheres to the Altman aesthetic of gently gliding cinematography (here provided by "Far From Heaven" lens-man Edward Lachman) and overlapping dialogue, but it's also much looser than much of Altman's recent work. The unmoored camera fittingly takes the point of view of a helpless angel and Keillor's dialogue is hypnotically natural in its many mini-monologues. Altman also conjures the best from his actors, especially in Streep's whimsical and optimistic Yolanda, who bears a grudge against GK, and Kline's bumbling Guy.

Oddly, the film works less well when it turns to its anthropomorphic vision of Death, a presence that haunts most of the broadcast. From the plotline to the character to the performance, this Death is all artifice.

Which is maybe a good thing — Altman and Keillor's inability to convey Death displays a lack of intimacy with the subject, giving hope this isn't the last show after all.

Posted Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/prairie.home.companion