Release Date:
06/09/2006
A Prairie Home Companion is a fun, homespun, feel-good flick that provides a rollicking good time at the movies—guaranteed. From Robert Altman, the legendary director of MASH, Nashville, and The Player, the film is pure entertainment with a great soundtrack, wit, and a talented ensemble, which includes Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, and Kevin Kline. Based on costar and writer Garrison Keillor's enormously popular Minnesota radio show of the same name (running weekly on NPR since 1974), this fictitious plot centers on the show's last broadcast. With the sale of the company looming, the characters slowly realize they're working together for the last time. But instead of being bittersweet, this film reminds you of a gentler time, when people sang on the radio instead of dry-humping the air in music videos. Sure, there's an unnecessary subplot involving a guardian angel (Virginia Madsen), but it doesn't get in the way of this amusing, low-budget film's real mission: To put on a show and to do it proudly.