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A Prairie Home Companion Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: PG-13 (for risqué humor) Genre: Comedy, Drama, Musical Theater release: June 09, 2006 by Picturehouse Directed by: Robert Altman Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes Cast: Woody Harrelson (Dusty), (Guy Noir), (Lola Johnson), (Lefty), (Yolanda Johnson), (Rhonda Johnson) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

For 31 years (and counting) Garrison Keillor has brought his homespun, smart-but-not-pretentious variety show, A Prairie Home Companion, to the airwaves every week. The show's endurance in a notoriously fickle entertainment culture is remarkable in and of itself, but it's mind-boggling when you consider that the airwaves are of the radio type, not TV. Now, for the first time, Keillor brings his sensibilities to a screen rather than a dial, in a fictionalized broadcast of the show, also entitled A Prairie Home Companion.

In the movie, A Prairie Home Companion is a regional rather than national production. The radio station on which it airs has been purchased by an indifferent Texas conglomerate which is about to take a wrecking ball to the show's beloved Fitzgerald Theater—and an axe to the show itself. With the exception of opening and closing scenes at a nearby diner, the entire story takes place in the Fitzgerald on the night of the show's last airing.

Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as the gospel-singing Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson

Three PHC characters used in regular sketches on the actual radio show are made "real" in the film. Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda, Dave, De-Lovely) brings the pulp detective Guy Noir to life as a doorman-cum-investigator who's equal parts Sam Spade, Buster Keaton and Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau. (In a recent interview, Kline said he began to understand Guy Noir once Keillor explained that his character was "completely nuts.") Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly play the bawdy, bickering, brotherly cowboys Dusty and Lefty. And Garrison Keillor himself brings an integral element from the radio show to the movie, playing an announcer named GK who anchors the proceedings in a distinctly "Keillorian," understated fashion. Notably, Keillor holds his own with the film's stellar cast, and has an oddly magnetic presence, the stodgy eye of a show business hurricane.

The movie also features Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as gospel sirens Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, the remaining half of a four-sister group who once botched a Laurence Welk audition and never really got the fame due them. Lindsay Lohan is remarkably effective as Yolanda's teen-age daughter Lola, who endures the incessant reminiscing of her mother and aunt by writing suicide poetry in the corner of their dressing room. Tommy Lee Jones appears briefly as the corporate Texas henchman sent to shut the show down, and Virginia Madsen hovers over the proceedings as a mysterious angel of death. Saturday Night Live's Maya Rudolph plays Molly, the very pregnant and exasperated assistant stage manager who must repeatedly interrupt GK's leisurely, tangential storytelling to get him on mic on time.

Lindsay Lohan is remarkably effective as Yolandas teen-age daughter Lola

There are some plot twists here and there, mostly to do with Guy Noir's investigation of Virginia Madsen's ghostly but attractive presence. The backstage death of an old country crooner (L.Q. Jones as Chuck Akers) causes a bit of a stir. But this is a film less about plot and more about moments, about songs, conversations, glances, and the irritations and affections that animate people and cause them to be repelled by, and attracted to, one another.

The movie's soul is in the music, and there's lots of it. The radio show's regular house band is put to good use, and all of the actors are clearly doing their own singing and playing. (The film's producers have boasted that none of the music was recorded or edited after-the-fact, giving the soundtrack a rare and refreshing, unvarnished spontaneity). Most of the tunes are old gospel and folk songs—with the exception of Dusty and Lefty's raunchy Country and Western ditties and radio show-regular Jearlyn Steele's stellar soul numbers. Streep and Tomlin's Johnson sisters carry most of the musical weight, and the performances are authentic and enthusiastic, even if they lack the spine-tingling charm that elevated soundtracks for films like O Brother Where Art Thou and Cold Mountain.

The fingerprints of famed director Robert Altman (Nashville, Short Cuts, Gosford Park) are all over this film. He keeps the point of view fluid (reportedly through the use of multiple cameras and HD video), so that scenes don't begin and end but flow in and out of each other. His ability to fill every inch of the frame with activity and meaning keeps this show brimming with humanity, and his use of "wild sound" (in which conversations are heard in layers, much as they are in real life) keeps things loose and real. It's easy to attribute the magical chemistry between Streep and Tomlin, and, to a lesser extent, Harrelson and Reilly, to Altman's legendary ability to foster safe, creative environments in which talented actors can improvise, take risks and flourish. It's also easy to credit (or blame) Altman for the leisurely and meandering pace of the mostly plot-less story.

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