A Prairie Home Companion

A Prairie Home Companion Robert Altman Date: 2006-10-10   —   DVD / VHS product page Rating:

When I do these reviews, you might think that I am doing them for you, but the reality is that these are just as much for me as for anyone. Sometimes, like today, I start off to write one review and in the process of writing realize that I'm writing a different review. For instance, I started to write that

When Garrison Keillor begins a story on his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, you can be assured of three things: the story will be long an convoluted, it won't ultimately have any particular point, and you will be spellbound throughout the whole thing (and probably laughing too). Given that Keillor co-wrote the story and wrote the screenplay, it's no surprise that his film, centered around the radio series, would share all of those characteristics.

The problem is that I realized as I was writing this review that the film does have a point. It's easy sometimes to confuse not having a point and not being heavy-handed about having a point.
The story is an interesting interweaving of reality and fantasy. The premise is that the radio station and theater from which A Prairie Home Companion broadcasts is being bought out by a big corporation out of Texas; the film follows the large cast on-stage and back-stage through the last show. The film treats the character Guy Noir (who Keillor uses on his radio show for private detective sketches) as a real person, a PI who's down on his luck and takes a job handling security for the show (played perfectly by Kevin Kline). The main fantasy element, though, is a woman who we come to realize is an angel of death--originally a human being, she died while listening to A Prairie Home Companion and now shuttles other mortals off to the afterlife. The film follows large cross-section of the radio show's cast and crew, developing each character and weaving them into the narrative.
So, what about having a point? It's a film that very easily leaves the viewer at the end saying "Huh? Is that it?" because it doesn't have an obvious message or moral to it. At the same time, there is at least one main motif that is explored from a number of angles: death. The film brings us literal and figurative deaths aplenty, from a character who dies in the course of the film and another (or is it two?) whose death is implied but not shown. We also have references to deaths in the past, a teenaged girl (Lindsay Lohan) who seems fascinated by suicide, and a number of conversations about death, dying, and remembrance. We also have the tearing down of the theater and the ending of the show as a metaphorical death that each character is coping with in his or her own way. We're probably at least a little inclined to take Keillor's statements as definitive, but really the writing has a certain "negative capability," that characteristic of which Shakespeare is praised as the exemplar that allows a writer to let the characters speak without favoring a particular viewpoint, the open-mindedness to make contradictory views appealing through their sympathetic treatment.
Even though it wasn't always clear where the story was going, it certainly was spellbinding throughout. The story was quirky and fascinating and the performances were excellent. Keillor wasn't afraid to make fun of himself, Meryl Streep plays the jilted Yolanda Johnson well and Lily Tomlin as her sister is quite good as well. Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are excellent as the off-color cowboys Dusty and Lefty. The musical performances are nice, the direction is good... it's just plain good in a folksy, homespun way.

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