A Prairie Home Companion
(2006)
review by Died with Boots On

A live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor, “ A Prairie Home Companion” is broadcasted on public radio from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul , Minnesota for two hours every Saturday evening. Reminiscent of the Grand Ole Opry, the radio show is like a fossil from decades past, completely forgotten by time. Robert Altman's mercurial execution and Garrison Keillor's witty and agile script fashion a fourth wall that blurs the line between nostalgic sentimentally from another time and space and today's yesterday. The audience in the Cineplex can't help but feel like they are only sitting a stone's throw from the family of headlining performers. Weaving between film noir and mockumentary, “A Prairie Home Companion” is like a “ This Is Spinal Tap” for live radio. Garrison Keillor and a handful of musical acts and stagehands play themselves, which fuels the theatrical realism that so effortlessly manifests itself within the confines of the film.

“A Prairie Home Companion” is not only a film for those with an ear for the vintage, but it is also a heart wrenching drama that becomes more and more inexplicably unnerving with each twist and turn. The finale is a hopeful one despite the foggy gloom that hangs its head over the second and third acts. One of the characters was appropriately named The Axeman (Jones), which was a clever metaphor for his purpose in the film, but also a leitmotiv symbolic of the film itself. While each character mulls over the possibility that this is their last show, it's as if their head is slammed onto the chopping block. This isn't the end of a radio show, it's the end of an era, and with the death of an era comes the death of the people that rode it out. Even though we aren't let it on the unfolding drama that must be ravaging their brains, we realize that something tragic is slinking in the shadows. And yet we also know that there is something great, like a phoenix being born out of its own ashes. The artistic masterpiece is a typical Robert Altman film, drenched in every form of figurative medium known to man.

While Robert Altman helmed the project from his directorial chair, writer Garrison Keillor hacked away in the dark of night at what I have deemed the best screenplay ever contrived by human hands. Within thirty seconds I knew it was a diamond in the rough. With these two incredible yet conflicting powers working behind the scenes, the question arises, did Robert Altman encourage his actors and actresses to ad lib their lines as he has done on countless occasions? Would that up the ante for an unmistakably surrealist piece of art despite the beautifully written script? It's hard to tell if the script we were hearing was a butchered inferno or if GK (as he is creatively named in the movie) is the biggest reserve for untapped talent in Hollywood . Either way, the cast's ever-vibrating vocal cords are hypnotic.

Speaking of the cast, they are typecast. It's obvious from their haggard appearance and claim to fame that Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly would fantasize about living a cowboy's life. Not only that, but at each other's throats with inappropriate humor, singing taboo songs for every man, woman, and child to hear. They steal the show with their song about filthy jokes, meanwhile the censor rampages backstage screaming profanity and throwing everything in sight. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin play two sisters who never quite grew up and still have girlish dreams and live in their memories. L.Q. Jones showed up for work in the same clothes he wears everyday. He's got great musical chops and an incredible stage presence. Lindsay Lohan played a serious character without much depth, but that's fine all things considered. She wasn't so much a character as she was an excuse to dredge up the past. And finally, Garrison Keillor is so far enveloped in his element that he is one with it. It's impossible to tell where the radio-show stops and where the film begins. Maybe the film never begins.

The story goes something like this. Guy Noir (Kline), the manager of the long-running live radio-show, “ A Prairie Home Companion,” hears rumors of an “ axeman” making his way from the heart of Texas to rip the show to shreds, and then rip those shreds to shreds. Making his way out of a diner in a telltale film noir sequence more likely to appear on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” than in a movie, Guy chances upon a woman adorned in a white trench coat. Her presence is a bit of a mystery so I won't say anything more about her. As the cameraman snakes his way through the different conversations of the radio performers and behind-the-scenes miracle workers, we fall head-over-heels in love with these people and we don't know why. They are endearing in their mindsets and intentions and the chemistry is unprecedented. I can't help but find a real-life comparison for every character in the movie. Different forks in the road inspire the movie to branch off in different directions and stir up drama on the set. Snippets of musical acts pepper the almost real-time action that embodies the heart and soul of the story. While the two-hour slice of Americana electrifies the WLT station, named for the “With Lettuce and Tomatoes” option on sandwiches, The Axeman (Jones) comes swinging down hard.

Another notch in the belt of the man honored at the last Academy Awards Ceremony with the Lifetime Achievement Award, “ A Prairie Home Companion” is a tale of outmoding at its most heart wrenching, the obsolete and unfashionable versus the chic parking lot. It's certainly not as preachy as I'm making it sound. It's a comedy at face value, but it reaches so much deeper, and despite it's philosophizing, it has no underlying message. It ends just where it begins, still hanging in the balance. Perhaps shrouded in the comedic bickering is a message about the ominous state of our forward-moving country without a rearview mirror. It's not for me to say. This is a movie where the onlooker has to establish themselves and their mentality within the storyline and take from it what it so generously offers. Although it flies under the radar, it has star power enough to become an instant cult classic with material that tears the lid off of the small-town radio-show. This film plays the octaves and I love it.