A Prairie Home Companion

Review by Clint Morris

Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan

Robert Altman shows off his pensive look

A Prairie Home Companion reminds one of going to, say, a young brother or sister’s school concert. Everyone is nice, there’s a few recognisable faces, some of the performers are even quite talented, but at the end of the day it’s just not of interest. It’s something that wasn’t made for you. 

Granted, Robert Altman’s films have never appealed to the mass market – though some may consider films like Popeye and M*A*S*H an attempt to do so – but more so a specialised crowd.

The Player is a brilliant film, but it will only probably appeal to those with an interest in the inner-makings of film and studio life. Same with Short Cuts: it’s a wonderfully performed film, but it will probably only appeal to wannabe actors and film connoisseurs who are interested in performance over plot. His last film, The Company, would probably appeal to an even lesser crowd than usual – ballerinas, being that it was no more than a fly-on-the-wall look into the lives of the Swan Lake troupe.

A Prairie Home Companion, though a well-performed and well-written pic, is again only going to appeal to a very succinct crowd. Thing is, I don’t quite know who that crowd is....

Written by Garrison Keillor (who also appears in the film), creator and host of the long-running public radio show of the same name, Companion fixes on the final night of a long-running radio performance piece. The eclectic bunch of characters includes Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as sisters Yolanda (Streep) and Rhonda (Tomlin) Johnson, the last remaining members of a musical family whom Yolanda describes to her daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) as "the Carter family, only not famous". Other characters include a case-hardened private detective, Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), and Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as a duo of singing cowboys.

So who is going to go for this film? Radio announcers? NIDA graduates? Musicians? John Woo? Being that he loves things to go ‘slow’. Heck, I just don’t know...!

The main default of the film isn’t that its target market is too small, but rather that the film itself isn’t a shade on some of Altman’s previous films. It just isn’t. It moves too leisurely, it’s undistinguished and the storyline – unlike his other films such as The Player, which easily engrossed – just isn’t that transfixing. 

If it had been more honest, and was as much of a fly-on-the-wall into the ‘radio show’ as The Player was about the film industry (and rather than trying to exist in an illusory world) it might have even be a little more gripping. Unfortunately, not even “Tarzan Grip” can help Altman here.

2.5 out of 5

A Prairie Home Companion
Australian release: 5th October, 2006
Cast: Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Lindsay Lohan, Woody Harrelson, John C.Reilly, Virginia Madsen, Tommy Lee Jones((
Director: Robert Altman
Website: Click here.