“’Prairie’ is At Home On the Big Screen”
Common folks discuss trivial matters that are of the utmost importance to them; The past collides with the present; Angels converse with the living; Welcome to “A Prairie Home Companion” or as I call it Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” the “HEE Haw” edition.
A fictionalized version of Garrison Keillor’s famed radio program, “A Prairie Home Companion” visualizes the flavor of the show (which can be listened to on public radio each week) while illustrating what possibly goes on with the cast and crew when the microphones go silent. Written by Keillor, the screenplay nudgingly chuckles at the characters he and his radio cast have perfected since the mid-seventies, even writing a character (played by himself with his own name) that presents the persona Garrison Keillor as a cold, womanizer whose “Show Must Go On” ethic ignores any sort of compassion or nostalgia.
Other characters include two raunchy singing ranch-hands (Woody Harrelson and John C Reilly) who sing randy songs to the stage manager’s chagrin, a lovesick singer (Meryl Streep), her wise sister (Lily Tomlin) and her suicide-songwriting daughter (Lindsey Lohan), a lothario singer from the old days (LQ Jones) and a security officer (Kevin Kline) who somehow fell off the pages of “Maltese Falcon.” On this, the last night of “A Prairie Home Companion,” before a corporation pulls the plug and turns the majestic theater housing the live radio show into a parking lot, an ethereal presence (Virginia Madsen) wanders around the theater’s backstage with a mission in mind.
In the course of an evening, the players deal with death, loss of employment, the end of romance and the end of an era.
Keillor’s script is filled with irony, more than out-loud laughs. It’s a brewing pot of Midwestern aphorisms and relationships between people who have worked together so long; they’re a family who are unwillingly being split up. This is a rarity, a successful existential comedy (see “I Heart Huckabees” for the opposite side of the spectrum) where people from the 40, modern times and from heaven carry conversations as if there were nothing odd about the time warps.
Altman is in hog heaven with multi-character plots, theatricality and talented actors. He keeps the stories coherent and flowing like the master he is.
The cast gels perfectly. Though some of the actors may be friends, I doubt they all have spent years together like a family, and yet you couldn’t tell by watching these performers mingling on the screen. They add such minor details as using mouth muscle weights before singing and other subtleties that put the viewer inside this odd world.
Madsen, wandering around in a white coat and low angle lighting that gives her a ghost-like presence, immediately lends the film an otherworldly, European experience.
Kline adds a world from the past, not the real past, but the pulp past of 30s and 40s novels. As Guy Noir, the detective moonlighting as a security guard, he’s like a cartoon character walking into the real world. All of his dialogue sounds like it spilled out of Dashiell Hammett’s throw-away lines like "She wore an overcoat so white that rain would feel guilty to land onto it.” A klutz though who no one takes seriously, he’s Sam Spade meets Maxwell Smart.
Streep and Tomlin are pros as the only remaining sisters of a singing family. They reminisce about old times together as if they were retelling tales to strangers. Tomlin plays the stalwart one, with Streep as the over-emotional one. Lohan spends most of the film with them, and though she has little dialogue, she manages to keep her presence from disappearing into the background. She reminds us that despite a few years of tabloid drama and silly Disney comedies, a star is waiting to be born.
A simple film that meanders like a pleasant breeze on a flowered hill, “A Prairie Home Companion” will delight fans of the radio show and will hopefully add some new listeners. Grade: A- |
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