A Prairie Home Companion: A Hit for Garrison Keillor, Robert Altman and Company

Reality meets fiction as four threads repeatedly intersect, pass by, diverge, come back together and intersect again in Robert Altman's and Garrison Keillor's newest hit from the Midwest, A Prairie Home Companion, named lovingly after the radio show it immortalizes and in some measure documents.

If you are one of those who have never tuned in, accidentally or intentionally (I, myself, have caught it by accident a handful of times), to National Public Radio's broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion," you may have less chance of understanding the subtle humor and shades of meaning underlying the more apparent story, plot devises and jokes. But even someone wholly unfamiliar with Garrison Keillor's abundantly popular radio show is easily engrossed and caught up with events and characters as the plot lines twine around each other like a double helix in bloom.

The movie opens with the backstage bustle of a live-audience show approaching "curtain up," and some of the talent is missing. But not to fear, the missing ones come strolling in amidst cheerful hello's to all and recognition of tunes played on the piano. This is how Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and Lindsey Lohan make their entrances, and a grand way it is to enter, too. Perfectly staged, perfectly written, perfectly filmed; this is a stars' entrance. Meryl Streep here delivers the first line that lets us into the internal situation of these people we will now get to know. The line concerns a song sung by the Carter Family, "You know, like us...only famous...."

The film is set up by alternately spending time in three theater locations. First, the camera sits in the ladies dressing room with Yolanda (Streep) and Rhonda (Tomlin), sisters, as they reminisce, grouse and cry a little about times and loves past on this, the night after which the radio show will go to join other things of times past. Lola (Lohan), Yolanda's daughter - named after the sisters' mother Lola - writes poetry, listens to the stories and decides how to react to maybe getting her chance to sing for the show.

Then, the camera stands in the men's dressing room where GK (Garrison Keillor), Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly), and others casually groom and prepare for the live radio broadcast while listening to GK's rambling, ambling story about how he got started in radio (Version A).

The camera then moves upstairs to the comic relief to watch (watch over) theater detective and security officer a la 1930's, Guy Noir (Kevin Klein) as he elegantly catches his fingers in drawers, burns cigarettes (instead of lighting them) and misses significant events that occur right in front of him - but he does it all with such savior fare. Enter the fourth thread to the plot - a mysterious lady (Virginia Madsen) in white - a white trench coat that is. Who is she, what does she want, and what has she got to do with the deeper meaning of the film??

These are just some of the questions that the film answers as the night progresses, a night that will be the show's last because the theater is being torn down, and the radio station is closing after being bought out by a corporate entity, a representative of which is expected to pay a visit during the course of the show. All this transpires while Molly (Maya Rudolf), the stage manager, babysits the talent, labors to keep her cool, ushers the right people to the right spots at the right times and plays the perfect "straight" character to a collection of unintentional comics.

Was there anything wrong with this movie? Very little that I could see...well, just one thing, and I truly hate to say it. First, though, let me say that this film reminds me of why the world loves and admires both Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin and showers them with laurels at every possible opportunity. Meryl Streep once again hands in an exquisite performance, creating a truly memorable character...but.... It seems to be that perhaps in this film we see the inner edge of the limit of Merly Streep's talent.

There were a few isolated spots - once going down the stairs and twice on stage - when the character showed the actress underneath working very consciously for a particular effect. Just three little glimpses, an accent a tad overdone, a bit delivered more like a drunken woman than a grieving woman and a hard part of a song that she knew she could do right because she'd worked so diligently on it. And was Lily Tomlin maybe just a little too abrasive here and there?

The production design (Dina Goldman), lighting and cinematography (Edward Lachman, S1mOne), and editing (Jacob Craycroft) were seemingly flawless (except one wonders what happened to the cowboys in the last scene). The sepia tones in the lighting blend well with the portion of the theme dealing with things that come to an end along with the end of an era. The live performance and backstage activity showed chaos and order reigning simultaneously, and the order among characters was mostly due to the intrepid Molly. Director Robert Altman (The Company, Gosford Park) pulled all the right strings at all the right times; he is more like a master marionetteer than anything else in the way he finesses the many lines and players of this excellent film.

Garrison Keillor seems to be a consummate talent, because he can not only put on one fine radio show, his acting in A Prairie Home Companion is first-rate, as was true all round. This was particularly well shown in his scenes with the mysterious Dangerous Lady (who is very important to the meaning of this film) and later with Lola (a splendid achievement for Lohan). The story and screenplay were both of Keillor's production, and I find them to be interesting, multidimensional, well-crafted and entertaining.

Which leads to contemplation of the meaning behind A Prairie Home Companion. It certainly addresses the end of an era and the idea that all things must go in time and that going, when it is in the "fulfillment of time," is "not a tragedy." But there is definitely also a discussion of the ideas of true justice and true mercy; there is a comparison in the film between those who receive it and those who don't; and a comment on those who withhold it. This film is a hit. Five Stars (we forgive the tiny flaws).