A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Robert Altman brings Garrison Kiellor’s brainchild longtime famous running radio show to the silver screen with humor and poignance. The venerable director pied pipers a brilliant cast wherever he goes and Kiellor spins characters into yarn with hysterically consistent Americana mastery, so these two are a match made in heaven if your mind bends this way. Meryl Streep is particularly powerful as fragile Yolanda Johnson, skating between laughter and tears with blades which move through the audience at her whim. Her sister is played by Lily Tomlin and this pair make heartbreaking moments while Woody Harrelson and John Reilly provide rawhide slim jims of comic cowpoke relief. Kiellor is an impeccably timed creature to observe as with binoculars from a platform, and his effortless segues from one act into another fall right into Altman’s trap. The metaphysical moments are strange, almost Cohen brothers like and questionably unnecessary. Anyone who has been on or behind a stage in any capacity will appreciate this insightful eye into the slippery sloping whirlpool of performance life.
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