Though Robert Altman was in the process of developing a new movie when he died of leukemia in the fall of 2006, the 81-year-old auteur must have known A Prairie Home Companion, released just a few months earlier, would likely be his final film. A Prairie Home Companion is all about conclusions, both biological and artistic. How could death and legacy not have been on his mind? The film both feels elegiac and at peace with the fate all of us must eventually reckon with. It’s also a genuinely entertaining musical, featuring rousing guitar-and-banjo-plucked Americana delivered by bona-fide Hollywood stars.
A Prairie Home Companion is based on Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio variety show of the same name, which debuted in 1974 and quickly became a beloved cultural institution best known for its mix of comedy sketches, musical performances and Keillor’s storytelling segments. The film presents a fictionalized, behind-the-scenes look at the final broadcast of the radio show before it’s shut down for good (the actual A Prairie Home Companion aired until 2016). It unfolds backstage at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, the show’s real-life headquarters. WLT, the radio station that’s long been broadcasting this fictionalized version of the show, has been sold and will soon be shuttered. The new owners, with a nod to Joni Mitchell, plan to tear down the Fitzgerald (named after novelist F. Scott) to put up a parking lot.
As the cast and crew prepare for, and then execute, their ultimate performance, they reflect on the end of an era and the impact the show has had on their lives. The film’s sterling ensemble includes Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, singing sisters who’ve been a show staple for years. Lindsay Lohan plays Lola, Yolanda’s daughter and a budding songwriter-poet that happens to be obsessed with suicide. Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly play Dusty and Lefty, a cowboy singing duo known for their dad-jokey comedy banter. Kevin Kline plays Guy Noir, a private dick who serves as the film’s hard-boiled narrator, and Tommy Lee Jones, simply referred to as the Axeman, is the cold-blooded face of the station’s new owners. In addition to its exploration of the manic, behind-the-scenes dynamics of a fictional broadcast, A Prairie Home Companion also embraces elements of fantasy and whimsy. Virginia Madsen, dressed in a stark white trench coat, descends upon the Fitzgerald as the enigmatic character named Dangerous Woman, who serves as a sort of mystical angel of death. Her surreal yet tender interactions with these characters further underscore Altman’s contemplation of farewells and transitions, art and finality.
The entire cast is wonderful as they, in true Altman fashion, casually talk over each other and have winking asides with other characters mid-sentence. It’s no surprise that Streep and Tomlin, Harrelson and Reilly, Kline and Jones and Madsen thrive in this low-stakes, valedictory project. Keillor—who also wrote the screenplay—gives us his usual, gently garrulous self. But it’s Lohan’s performance that feels so striking and almost tragic, in retrospect. This is still the Lindsay of Freaky Friday and Mean Girls fame, whose future once seemed so bright.
The film’s musical performances (of mostly traditional, folksy tunes) are almost as terrific as its cast. Tomlin and Streep’s numbers (“My Minnesota Home” and “Goodbye to My Momma”) are wistful but delivered with beaming smiles. Country-western twosome Reilly and Harrelson winningly vamp during their novelty comedy tunes (particularly with the corny “Bad Jokes”). Gospel singer Jearlyn Steele delivers a stirring rendition of the anti-materialist “Day is Short” (an original song co-written by Keillor and Richard Dworsky). Lohan’s surprisingly sturdy performance of “Frankie and Johnny” (a Keillor-updated standard) reminds us that she’d already released two albums of her own prior to A Prairie Home Companion. The finest musical moment by far is saved for last. The cast comes together to reprise “Red River,” a glorious hymn that transitions to the celebratory “In the Sweet By and By.” It’s a collective performance that could’ve easily been pulled from The Last Waltz.
A Prairie Home Companion debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2006 to a warm yet muted reception. Despite its heavy-hitting cast and Altman’s recent-ish hits like Gosford Park and The Player, the film was only a modest box-office success, even though it more than doubled its $10 million budget. At the time, some critics embraced the movie as likely being Altman’s swan song. In a four-star review, Roger Ebert wrote, “What a lovely film this is, so gentle and whimsical, so simple and profound.” A Prairie Home Companion may not be the flashiest of Robert Altman’s big-cast extravaganzas, but it is one of his most humane. It’s also a fitting capstone—the infrequent Great Final Film—from a director whose approach to storytelling is often imitated but rarely matched.
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