A Prairie Home Companion is a radio show recorded live in Minnesota, but the private detective Guy Noir fears that it might be its last show, as investors plan to shut it down in the TV era and demolish the building. The crew still gives it their best during the recording: sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson sing songs, while Yolanda's daughter Lola writes songs about suicide and death; Cowboys Dusty and Lefty perform "bad jokes" song; the host Garrison Keillor mentions all of the sponsors... A woman in a white trench coat appears to be an angel, so Guy persuades her to escort the Axeman who wants to shut down the show to death via a car crash. However, the show is shut down, anyway. Years later, several members reunite in a diner and talk about their new jobs.
The final film in Robert Altman's meandering career, "A Prairie Home Companion" is situatued somewhere between his best and weakest films, since its homage to the last days of the eponymous radio show has its moments of humor and charm, yet its loose episodic structure with too many characters also revealed some of Altman's flaws in finding a focus. One can sense a feeling of nostalgia and sadness as the radio crew fears this is their last show, the fear of being run over by time and becoming outdated in the TV and Internet era, wrapped in a contemplation about whether what you love to do is profitable or useful in the modern world. The screenplay by real-life host Garrison Keillor is the best when it embraces the behind-the-scenes anecdotes and funny lines, since the sole singing sequences during the recording are uninteresting and mostly bland. Some snappy dialogues and witty lines are delicious. For instance, Guy Noir (a fancy Kevin Kline) descibes a woman: "She was beautiful. Her hair was... what God had in mind when he said: let there be... hair. She gave me a smile so sweet you could have poured it on your pancakes. She had a trench coat so white that rain would be embarassed to fall on it." In a sweet little sequence, Garrison tells Lola how he drove off in his car and accidentally left her father behind at a cafe, where he met her mother, a waitress working there, causing Lola to infer: "I mean, if you hadn't looked behind the back seat and seen he weren't there, I wouldn't exist." - "One of the most beautiful things I ever did not do." The subplot involving a woman who is an angel is ridiculous and doesn't work, whereas it is a pity that Lola wasn't used more in the storyline (she starts of thinking about death, so why not give her a character arc in which she outgrows it through working on the radio show?). Despite an inconstant storyline, there are more good bits that keep this film going, and Roger Ebert even included it in his list of Great Movies.
Grade:++
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