Deborah Lipp

A Prairie Home Companion (2006) 10/10
An old-fashioned radio show has its last performance after a corporate buy-out of the station. Directed by Robert Altman.

This is, to an extent, an if-you-like-Altman movie. So many of his are. It’s probably available to you to walk out of the theater and say, “What was that about?” You shouldn’t do that, but you could.

What it’s about is radio, and people, and fragility, and connection, and the random hand of death, and change, and all sorts of things that people might experience in a few hours thrown together. A group of people who have been working together, as performers and backstage, for many years, on their last night. They love, they fight, they hope for more, they settle for less. Possibilities become manifest, and some things just aren’t meant to be.

The backdrop of all of this is a scaled-down version of Garrison Keillor’s famous radio show. In the fictional version, it is a local show heard only on a local station. The musicians aren’t famous; they’ll be singing at churches and county fairs when they go off the air. The crux of the movie is the backstage interactions.

Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are on-hand as Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson—the Johnson Sisters were once a foursome of children, now they are an aging duet, still doing the same songs. Their performances are flawless; Yolanda is fragile, always fluttering away from knowing what she’s saying at any moment, but grounded in her music (and Streep, it turns out, is a wonderful singer). Her sister is solid, supportive, and deeply connected to their past. She cares for Yolanda and harmonizes with her won weaker voice. Yolanda’s daughter (Lindsay Lohan, in a wonderfully natural performance) plays at being depressed and disdainful.

When we’re not watching backstage interactions, there’s the onstage performances (wonderful) to enjoy. There’s also Kevin Kline, who plays Guy Noir in slapstick fashion. On the radio, Guy Noir is a comedy bit; a take-off on radio mysteries of the 40s. In the movie, he’s a real detective who fancies himself written by Raymond Chandler while he closes his fingers into drawers and knocks over hat stands. Also on the scene is a mysterious woman in white (Virginia Madsen) who is more than she seems. Her mystical presence works surprisingly well in the mix.

The set design deserves its own paragraph. It’s amazing, the kind of thing I want to take home on DVD so I can study the details at 3x zoom. Dressing rooms are like a history of broadcast radio, as well as a personal history of each character.

The Altman movies that I love do a lot of different things, and then bring them all together. Nashville, The Player, and A Prairie Home Companion do this. The current movie mixes music, drama, comedy, allegory, and a whole bunch of folks. It’s a delightful stew and I’ll be happy to watch it again.