I don't think that I've ever had such mixed feelings going into a movie as I did with this one.
On the plus side, it's an Altman movie, so it's likely to be good, and even if it's bad, you can count on Altman to be bad in more interesting ways than most directors. And there's that cast: Streep, Tomlin, Kline, Madsen, Harrelsen, Reilly.
But on the bad side, I despise Garrison Keillor. The radio version of A Prairie Home Companion has its moments -- much of the music is lovely, and some of the comedy sketches are amusing -- but Keillor's on-air personality is so smug and unlikable that I can't get through the show. Especially awful are his interminable monologues about Lake Wobegon, which are meant to be heartwarming pseudo-nostalgia for a small-town life that doesn't really exist anymore, but which are laced with an undercurrent of anger and cruelty toward the small towns that Keillor is claiming to love.
And when the movie was over, I came out with pretty much the same mixed feelings I had going in; much of the cast is superb, there's a lot of delightful music, and there's Keillor at the center of it all, so morose that you'd think he was deliberately trying to suck the joy from the movie.
The setting is the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, from which the real Companion is broadcast. Keillor is playing a version of himself, usually referred to just as "GK," and Companion is similarly playing a version of itself; the movie's PHC really is the small-town, small-audience local radio show that the real PHC pretends to be.
In this fictional universe, the radio station's new owner is tearing down the theater and shutting down the show, and tonight will be the last broadcast. All of GK's guests and regular cast are saddened at the impending death of the show, and urge him to make some acknowledgement of the event on the air; he refuses. "Every show is the last show," he says, "that's my philosophy."
Some of the actors are playing characters who appear in sketches on the real radio show (but who are not played on that show by these actors); Kevin Kline plays Guy Noir, who appears in private eye sketches, but for the movie, is moved into the "real" world as the show's security chief (the role's not terribly well conceived, and Kline is stranded in a series of bad slapstick scenes); Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are charming as singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, constantly pushing the boundaries of taste. There are also actors and musicians who appear on the real show, some as themselves (singers Robin and Linda Williams, and Jearlyn Steele; sound-effects wizard Tom Keith), some in fictional roles (Sue Scott as the show's makeup woman).
And there are actors who appear in new fictional roles, best of all Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as Yolanda and Rhonda, the "Johnson Girls" who are all that's left of what used to be a quartet. If you saw Streep and Tomlin introducing Altman at the Oscars this year (he received an honorary Oscar), then you have some idea of their relationship in this movie; they're constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other's sentences, and telling long, drawn-out anecdotes about their childhood and life on the road. They are a magnificent comic duo (and Streep, in particular, is a fine singer), and some smart director should build an entire movie around them.
Keillor, on the other hand, isn't much of an actor; his scene with Virginia Madsen, who plays a mysterious presence credited only as "Dangerous Woman," is painful to sit through. He's got the saddest face I've ever seen, all heavy jowls and eyelids; even when he smiles (which isn't often), that only manages to elevate his mood from suicidal to glum. You understand after this movie why his career is in radio.
So the movie's a big sloppy mess. There's no real plot; it's more just a series of semi-random character interactions. If there's a theme, it's death and how we deal with it, though I wouldn't say there was any particular coherent statement being made. There's a lot of music, so much that the movie almost feels like a weird concert film; most of it is very well done, though if you don't have a taste for old-fashioned Americana, folk, and sentimental ballads sung entirely without irony, you're likely to be bored. Performances range from stellar to dismal, with Streep and Tomlin at the top of the peak and Kline and Keillor at the bottom.
If you're a fan of Keillor and the real Companion, by all means go to the movie, which you will love. If you're not, you'll have to decide whether it's worth putting up with him to get what good the movie has to offer.
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