A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor combine reality and fantasy in this smooth, ebullient take on the long-running Prairie Home Companion radio show. Set during the show's fictitious last broadcast--the host station has been bought--the film has plenty of elements from the real PHC radiocasts, including a live audience and the sensational Shoe band. The onstage program is mostly music numbers, a beguiling mix of standards and old-style country. However, the show's usual comedy sketches are never presented, save for the commercial parodies--this may be a PHC show, but Lake Wobegone is never mentioned. Instead, the sketches are played out as backstage banter that feautres the Johnson Sisters (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin), a harried stage hand (Maya Rudolph), a former listener turned angel (Virginia Madsen), and Keillor himself (a crusty alter-ego named simply G.K.). A few characters from the real PHC are given life: the singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty and gumshoe Guy Noir are embodied by Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, and Kevin Kline, respectively. Old flames are fanned, stories are spun, new talents are found (Lindsay Lohan has a chance to shine as Streep's daughter) and everyone wonders if G.K. will do something to ebb the tide of cancellation (personified by Tommy Lee Jones as the corporate Axeman). All of the actors do right as singers, and seem to be having the time of their life. Keillor's screenplay is perfect fodder for Altman's usual brand of storytelling, as characters babble on with the camera picking them up often in mid-thought. The film appeared a few months after Altman received an honorary Oscar, and the director is still at the top of his game, creating this smile-inducing, song-filled time, ending with an ethereal last musical number. --Doug Thomas Amazon.com

 Idea: OK - Execution: Terrible - Intent: Dubious
I won't repeat what a lot of the one-stars here are saying, much of which I agree with. It wasn't the plotlessness and the stereotyping that truly bothered me the most, it was the supposition behind this project that oozes out in every line and incident. First of all, let me say that the final sequence and credits is the best part of the film, the performance of "In the Sweet By and By," because this is what Prairie Home Companion (PHC) has been (and still is) about, passing some of the great traditions of the American past on to present generations. The songs Garrison Keillor uses in his shows ("Sweet By and By", "John Henry," etc.) are some of the greatest cultural products of our nation, and his show makes these songs really human, often by building a story around them.

But that aspect doesn't come across in the film. More importantly, the most important part of PHC, the audience, is COMPLETELY missing in this film! Only once, at the very beginning when they are filing in to the theatre, do we see an audience - a sort of stereotypical "geeky" Minnesota audience, I might add. We never really hear them at all throughout the show and pretty much forget that there even is anybody out there! The audience, both in the theatres and at home/car/wherever, are what make PHC what it is. When Garrison Keillor tells a story you can hear the audience respond in recognition of some of the characters he describes or laugh at an incident that reminds them of something that happened in their own family. I can't believe that GK supposedly wrote this screenplay and left out the audience. Here is my take on it - for better or worse - the portrayal of a modern audience as a real character in PHC would give the impression that the show is alive and current and meaningful to a present-day audience (which it is and continues to be) - with old songs brought up to date with current events and situations, both political and social. But the director and Hollywood production team don't want to do that. Hollywood is in the business of tearing down culture, not shoring it up. So PHC is an old out-of-date artifact - it's supposed to have lost its meaning in today's sound-byte cynical world. But of course anyone who listens to or has attended a PHC show knows this is not at all the case. This movie therefore is NOT about PHC. It's about Hollywood poking fun (yet again) at another institute of American Culture. Hollywood doesn't really like success stories that aren't about Hollywood, and the 30+ year success of an NPR radio show with an audience that is comfortable mixing old-fashion values with a modern sensibility is just too outrageous for them, so Hollywood producers have to show all these characters as has-beens, dotty, self-absorbed, and - perhaps the most egregious - unprofessional, which is clearly not the case in reality.

And once again, I should add, Hollywood is taking pot-shots at generational differences. The young people - of which there is only one in this move! - are "cool," while the old people are sentimental idiots. That last scene in the diner is one of the most objectionable in the entire film. The daughter, who has just been humiliated in the previous scene by being forced to sing a song onstage - NOTE: how "unprofessional" is this? - and now she gets her revenge. She doesn't even have time to hang up from her cell phone call to have a conversation with her mom. Her mom is a brainless nincompoop who doesn't know anything about money, while the daughter is oh-so sophisticated. She breezes in, says some insulting things to her mom - which her mom has earned, right? - and then breezes back out on her phone. Once again, the older people who have the knowledge and experience, even what should be the professionalism, are here portrayed as the clueless ones. I think Meryl Streep should have refused to play the scene. But then the whole movie was set up that way right from the beginning, with the Streep and Tomlin characters. These two actresses were fabulous in what seemed like an long ad-lib at the beginning, but unfortunately it just set the characters up to be pitied and, eventually, written-off, even by their own offspring. Really sad. And totally against the theme of PHC.

Anyway, the radio show still runs, I know many people who listen every week and love it (and learn from it) - and it is still a wonderful mix of old and new, the traditional and the crazy present. There are lots of young people and often phenomenal guests on the show, and it reminds us of what real VARIETY shows were about, and should still be about: reaching out to a wide audience and makes people laugh, not at someone else, but at themselves - it reminds them that humanity only means something when it's shared. May 4, 2008

 Meryl's accent is worth it
I have been a fan of Prairie Home Companion (radio) for a while and think this movie is a great companion piece.
No, it is not a film version of the radio broadcast. It wasn't set up to be. It starts off as a Guy Noir mystery - one of the components of the radio program which some of the reviewers here seem to be missing.
The movie is a behind-the-scenes look into the program, and on the evening of it's final performance. Thankfully it is just a movie plot. The radio program continues to delight listeners with it's live broadcast every week from Minnesota.

Meryl Streep's Minnesota accent and speech dialect are absolutely amazing!
I personally don't know folks from that region, but if you ever watched FARGO, and listened to many of the characters voicings (most notably Margie, the investigating police officer played by the very wonderful Frances McDormand) and compared Meryl Streep's interpretation, you'd just have to admire her commitment and ability. She sings quite nicely, too.

The slower pacing the film may have that some folks may find boring is more an indication of their own lack of patience or tolerance. Everything commited to film doesn't have to be geared to short attention span types. February 3, 2008

 Time Better Spent Alone
I've never much cared for Altman, and this film displays his fashionably nihilistic, aimlessly sappy meanderings at their worst. A grave injustice to Garrison Keillor's quirky weekly broadcast and a typically Altman-esque waste of a great cast. Surprisingly, it's Lindsay Lohan who acquits herself most admirably with understated comic performances that cannot be missed: so, both for her scene delivering a mangled rendition of "Frankie and Johnny" and for her portrayal of an adolescent's interactions with her harried show-biz mom (played well by an otherwise criminally underutilized Meryl Streep), this movie might possibly perhaps be a little worth watching ... almost - but for those scenes alone and for nothing else! Blech. Double-blech. Avoid! January 21, 2008

 Decent, but not enough like the radio show
I really wanted to see this movie because in one of my college classes, part of our assignment was to listen to "A Prairie Home Companion" the original radio show. They radio shows always amused me and I loved a lot of the fake commercials and really liked the bits with the detective. So when I heard the movie was coming out, I figured it would be good and I wanted to see it to relive a little of my college life.

I must say that compared to the original radio shows, the movie kind of lacked in humor. Some of the greatest Prairie Home Companion bits were left out. And they made the show seem like it was a lot of singing, when the original radio show wasn't. And I will admit that I hated Lindsey Lohan's character. It really pulled away from what I felt the original Companion was like, and he song about death at the end was upsetting.

A lot of the parts of the movie seemed to drag on and made it hard to really get into it. I found myself getting up to do random other activities around the room because it a bit too long and not fast paced enough to really keep someones' attention. I find it a little silly that as a radio show, it was more enthralling then it was as a live action movie.

All in all, I was slightly disappointed in the movie. The only comic relief in the whole thing the cowboy duos' (the one with Woody Harrelson) songs. I'm just a little disappointed that they took this great old fashioned radio show, cut out their best bits (although you do get a bit of the detective bit feeling in Kevin Kline's character), and made into a complete musical.

I guess if you hadn't heard the original shows, its not that bad of a movie, but prefer the radio shows to the movie by far.

(And to be honest, I still find the "angel's" role in the movie to be completely pointless since she really doesn't do anything to help anyone on the radio show except the old lady having the affair with old perverted guy that dies). January 5, 2008

 Star-packed evening of A Prairie Home Companion live radio broadcast... with a twist
If you've ever listened to a radio show of A Prairie Home Companion, this will be a treat. You'll see a fictionalized setup of all the hustle and bustle that goes into one of these productions: the props, notes, the band, make-up (and make-out) rooms, and more.

If you've never listened to A Prairie Home Companion, you may be left scratching your head, wondering why anyone would think a recording of a radio broadcast could be movie-worthy.

Garrison Keillor's voice and persona weaves this show together, but the surprisingly strong acting and singing performances of Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Lindsay Lohan, and John Reilly really make this more than simply a taping of a show.

The plot is "the last show" for A Prairie Home Companion. How will people act? What will they say and sing? The non-Companion listeners who are viewing may say, "who cares?"

Rated PG-13 for "risqué humor." Make this a PG rating at most. This is a movie for the NPR crowd... you know who you are! December 26, 2007

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