Variety radio show moves to big screen

Director of such time-tested classics as “Nashville,” “MASH,” “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” and “Short Cuts,” 81-year-old Robert Altman has always tip-toed playfully on the outskirts of the conventional.

Very nearly an idiosyncrasy in and of himself, the Kansas City native patented several unconventional techniques — overlapping dialogue, long takes, sweeping pans, etc. — on his way to becoming one of the true movie mavericks of the 70s. But just when his acceptance into the film club seemed to be cemented, several nose dives in the 80s banished him rather prophetically from Hollywood.

Since then, he’s done as he pleased — for better, and for worse. While his blunders have been rather large, only after witnessing his masterful control in “Nashville” or the innovative camera movements in “Short Cuts,” can anyone truly appreciate Altman’s new film, “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Often times, it’s not what Altman is trying to say or the story he plans to tell, but rather the atmosphere he creates and the glimpses of unscripted humanity his camera catches that lend to his genius. And even though Altman does clearly have something to say in this film — whether it be about an uncertain time in the industry or a lament for a time gone by — the genius here is his effortless ability to make a banal life rather meaningful.

The inception of this film lies almost solely with Garrison Keillor, who serves as both screen writer and star of the breezy radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.” Keillor, the long-time host of the real-life PHC, started the variety show in 1974, and it is still broadcast live from the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul, Minn. Keillor relinquished his post in 1986 but still frequents the show, keeping his off-the-cuff monologues as pinpoint on screen as they are over the air waves.

Keillor and Altman are both born and bred Midwesterners, and “A Prairie Home” is so void of any concrete plot that it is probably better classified as a nostalgic fireside chat than the philosophizing film it sometimes attempts to be.

The show itself is an anachronism. In an age of television and the Internet, there is no longer a need for the imagination that accompanies radio. But as quasi-narrator and unnecessary security guard, Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), says, “Someone forgot to tell them.” Keillor and Altman capitalize on this long-standing oddity to relate their nostalgia for the simplicity and stoicism of the Midwest they once knew — as Keillor says in one of his many brilliantly penned lines, “We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.”

The paradox has finally caught up with PHC, however, and its plug will be pulled by a Texas corporation, represented in the film by the Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones). Altman incorporates an all-star ensemble of actors for the finale, acquiring the services of Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as the zany songstresses, the Johnson sisters (Yolanda and Rhoda), and Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as sing-a-along ranch hands, Dusty and Lefty.

The film tunes in and out of the action backstage and the performances on stage, but neither setting is overplayed. Hours could be wasted backstage listening to Yolanda and Rhoda recount their days on the Christian-music circuit, while Yolanda’s daughter, Lola (Lindsay Lohan), composes poems about death and suicide.

On stage, the action is no less engrossing. Harrelson and Reilly are hilariously crude with song titles like “I’ll Give You My Moonshine If You Show Me Your Jugs.” And Streep and Tomlin are equally harmonious in skits with Keillor, finding a variety of uses for duct tape and keeping sound effects man, Tom Keith, on his toes.

Where the film does falter, however, is its peripheral characters. Noir and the Axeman are merely plot fillers, and the noirish angel of death played by Virginia Madsen is a bit too deep for such a shallow plot. That’s no fault of the actors, however, especially Kline, who has maybe the most fun delivering piles of Raymond Chandler-esque lines of dialogue.

In the end, themes of friendship, love and death pervade the film, but there is a feeling of sadness that seems to linger.

As the cast closes with a rendition of “In the Sweet By and By,” it’s difficult to think that a film industry bent primarily toward profit could soon be without the stabilizing Altman — and to think that there might not be anyone to replace him.

Grade: B+