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Back Shelf Beauties
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A Prairie Home Companion Mention A Prairie Home Companion to a fan and you'll get a 20-minute dissertation about how it is the greatest radio program EVER, and radio just isn't the way it used to be. It's that kind of loyalty Picturehouse Films is depending on when the movie A Prairie Home Companion comes out this week. However, you don't have to be a regular listener to enjoy the film. It's great enough on its own, minus that part where Lindsay Lohan sings and gives caterwauling a bad name. Garrison Keillor stars as GK - longtime host of the weekly radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, broadcast live from the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, MN. Because a giant corporate radio company (from Texas, an inside joke for radio folks) has purchased the station and started cutting expenses, it is the show's last night on the air. While the stars are mourning and sharing stories that tell us the history of the old program, the theater's security guard, Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), is hot on the trail of a mysterious, gorgeous woman in a long white coat (Virginia Madsen). Why is she there? Will the hatchet man coming up from Texas (Tommy Lee Jones) find something salvageable in the folksy show?
Directed by Robert Altman and written by Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion isn't so much a movie with a strict beginning, middle and end, but more like a mélange of stories wonderfully brought to life with detail and zest by all involved. We learn about the characters, their struggles, their feelings about the end of an era and more as they bicker, perform and console each other as they take their final, bittersweet bows. While it may feel like the movie is spinning out of control with wild antics backstage, Altman keeps it all together so we can understand each character, laugh at the funny moments, and feel a tear or two stream down our cheeks when the emotional moments happen. He brilliantly juggles several plots all at the same time, and gives each character a chance to be defined by their rants and raves, a song selection or the sharing of a memory that could have been long forgotten in the wrong hands. Even better, he captures the thrill and tension of the backstage area, an invigorating and frightful place for any performer. Most of all, he draws out virtuoso performances from some of today's greatest living actors, and Lindsay Lohan. Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep are magnificent as the Johnson Sisters, Rhonda and Yolanda. We learn so much about the group's sad and exciting history as the two prepare for their performances in the dressing room, tell Yolanda's daughter, Lola (Lohan), all about the group's early days and haggle with GK about song selection. So much is said in little snippets of dialogue that you have to listen to everything, or risk missing the slightest, most nuanced piece of information as it slips from their lips. With Streep and Tomlin, it's not a chore to pay attention as they capture all of the sadness, pride and happiness these characters experience. Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly seem to be having the best time of all as the singing cowboys, Dusty and Lefty, with the rollicking tunes, and a finale that has you rolling in the aisles for its brilliance and low brow humor. Meanwhile, Kline is hilarious as the clueless detective giving the kind of Inspector Clouseau performance you wish he could have given in The Pink Panther remake, and Lohan fits in nicely with the vets as she enjoyably plays the bratty kid who would rather be anywhere but in that old-fashioned, musty theater. Right down to the date of Kurt Cobain's suicide emblazoned on her jeans, she is the antithesis of the group, and proud of it. Only two parts of A Prairie Home Companion bothered me. First of all, major Waffle deductions for allowing Lohan to sing live (I want some hazard pay for listening to that). She gives caterwauling a bad name with her painful, screechy, earsplitting rendition of Frankie and Johnny. For the love of God, and my hearing, I will offer $25 and a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby Ice Cream to the first director who tells her, "NO! You will not sing a song in this movie or for the soundtrack you tone deaf brat!" Also, the whole plot line about the mysterious lady in the white coat gets too mystical for me. While it makes sense as you learn more about her purpose for being at the final performance, everything else is so grounded in reality that this aspect of the story feels like it comes out of left field. A Prairie Home Companion is a wonderful, hilarious party of a movie, especially if you close your ears as Lohan starts to cue the band and lets 'er rip. 3 ½ Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2006 - WaffleMovies.com
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