A Prairie Home Companion (PG-13), directed by Robert Altman, is
now playing at Little Theatres, Pittsford Cinemas, and Tinseltown
However different their particular arts,
Garrison Keillor and Robert Altman make a perfect
match. As the new movie A Prairie
Home Companion demonstrates, Keillor’s radio show
provides an appropriate subject and venue for the interests and methods of one
of our most accomplished directors. Although the program by its nature really
needs no visual equivalent, the picture builds upon the familiar material to
produce something that any of its millions of listeners should understand and
appreciate.
Altman and Keillor, who wrote the
screenplay, begin with an oddly weak and flimsy framework upon which they
suspend a most attenuated plot. They choose one of Keillor’s
characters, the parody private eye Guy Noir, here played by Kevin Kline instead
of his creator, to narrate as well as participate in the events of what will be
the show’s last night — an evil corporation plans to demolish the theater to
construct a parking lot. The bumbling Noir roams around backstage, linking
characters and incidents, now and then interpreting the action, usually incorrectly,
and actually accomplishes one successful deed at the end.
The real story of the picture, however, involves the variety
of people who produce and appear in the show, which allows Altman to exercise
his distinctive cinematic methods. The large cast of both show and film
provides the director with his typical material, a number of disparate
characters with their own stories, all of whom, under his supervision, collide,
overlap, and intersect within the confined spaces of the stage and the backstage.
Aside from a few of Keillor’s
regulars among both the performers and the backstage workers, the large cast
consists mostly of actors who impersonate the sort of singers and musicians who
usually appear on A Prairie Home
Companion. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin play
Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, the last survivors of a country singing dynasty
like the Carter Family, only not as famous and not as good. Veterans of shows
in a thousand county fairs, church halls, and parking lots, they spend most of
their time behind the scenes reminiscing about their past, much to the disgust
of Yolanda’s hostile daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan).
Typically, the camera moves fluidly through the cramped,
crowded spaces of the dressing rooms, gliding from character to character,
interrupting the various stories, picking up a dozen interactions, overhearing
a dozen overlapping conversations. A cowboy duo, Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and
Lefty (John C. Reilly), compete, quarrel, and drive the stage manager crazy
with their tendency to violate the decency regulations (their final act
consists of a series of raunchy jokes with a guitar background). A mysterious
woman who identifies herself as the Angel of Death wanders around looking for
someone to lead up to Heaven — as it turns out, she finds two companions for
that final journey.
The presiding genius of the whole group, Garrison Keillor, plays himself quite well, displaying the same
easy, humorous manner that has endeared him to audiences around the country. He
announces the acts in the mellow baritone that seems made for radio and lends
his sweet singing voice to a number of the musical acts. Though they may mourn
the absence of the usual bulletin from LakeWobegon,
fans should delight in his commercials for ketchup, duct tape, and Powdermilk Biscuits, “in the big blue box.”
Despite two deaths and the dark finality of the show ending,
A Prairie Home Companion reflects the
funny, quirky, ironic, good natured tone of the radio program. Beyond the
parody of several radio shows that the movie and the program suggest, Keillor’s long, rambling, yarns in the movie emphasize his
place in the great American oral tradition of the tall tale.
Just about everybody in the movie performs with zest and
conviction. Meryl Streep, who apparently can do
anything, makes an entirely credible country singer, for example, and Lily
Tomlin and Woody Harrelson match her in conviction and energy. Beyond its
display of Robert Altman’s skill and Garrison Keillor’s
charm, the greatest joy of the movie derives from the sense that all the
performers appear to be having the time of their lives, just enjoying the hell
out of being in the film and on the radio.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2006.
