A Prairie Home Companion

Video Blessed the Radio Star
Adam Valen Levinson
Freelance Movie Critic
      In a semi-fictional depiction of A Prairie Home Companion’s swan song, Garrison Keillor brings his golden voice to the silver screen. This 105-minute delight skillfully translates the radio show’s amalgam of spoken and sung word into cinema, assigning most of the major roles to Hollywood stars. But this is no ordinary Prairie Home Companion. In the movie, the big company is giving the show the axe (never fear, out of the theater the show goes on) unless a mysterious stranger can alter its fate.
      Even as a radio show, A Prairie Home Companion is not afforded the usual informalities (though Keillor does wear red sneakers): each week’s live audience makes the show as much a performance as it is a broadcast. On screen, its Prairie Homeness is squared, or at least doubled, as we are given a front row seat both in front of and behind the curtain. Once there, we see the show as it sees itself: characters are offstage exactly as they are on it. Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), the immortal Film Noir stereotype, speaks to himself with the same overcooked similes he uses during his segments on radio, caricaturing every trait of the fedora-sporting black-and-white leading men of the Double Indemnity era. And GK tells as many stories to his colleagues as he does to the audience, always reminiscing (and altering) how he got into radio.
      A generous portion of the movie is dedicated to the varying species of folk music that characterize this Minnesota Public Radio export. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, both actresses worth their weight in Academy Awards, play the Johnson Sisters, who sing surprisingly well together. Dusty (John C. Reilly) and Lefty (Woody Harrelson) entertain as the accused vulgarian guitarists, constantly being scolded for their choice of material (“I’ll show you my moonshine if you show me your Jugs”). And Lindsay Lohan, playing Streep’s daughter, steps out of her knee-deep puddle of teenage angst to join in the heart warmth.
      The show’s sometimes offbeat, sometimes sincere, anachronistically-sponsored, Scandanavian-stereotyping style is presented undiluted in this hilarious movie. With slapstick (watch Kline’s fingers), another dimension is added to the already rich comedy. Director Robert Altman (Nashville) makes use of his medium, serenading both the eyes and the ears. Yes, Prairie Home is “radio like you’ve never seen it before”.
      For lovers of the show, this is a must-see. For those who have never been taken to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average, it is the perfect foray into parts of imaginary Minnesota you never thought you’d see.

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Photo (from left): Keillor, Streep, Lohan

A Prairie Home Companion
105 Minutes
Release Date: June 9, 2006