A Prairie Home Companion

Date watched 6th March 2011
Genre- Drama, Musical
Year- 2006
Running Time- 1hr 40mins
Directed By- Robert Altman
Written By-Garrison Keillor (Screenplay and story),Ken LaZebnik (story) .
Actors-Woody Harrelson, L.Q.Jones, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, John. C.Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep et al.
Acting-4/5
Keeping my attention- 1/4
Visuals/Direction- 3/5
Story/Plot- 2/6
Total 10 /20

Plot
This movie focuses on the backstage goings on of a musical variety radio show. But what’s different this night to any other? This is the last night, the last broadcast of ‘A Prairie Home Companion’.

My Personal Views
I have all respect for Robert Altman, and I know he died not long after completion of A Prairie Home Companion but I’m not a great fan of this movie. Well, where do I begin?

I bought this movie from WHSmiths in Epsom a while ago, it was cheap and I thought ‘wow so many great actors where can I go wrong?’ I know now. There are too many characters with too little about them, and all in all they don’t ‘gel’ together. There just isn’t enough time to develop the characters and to give them their ‘stories’, you end up more confused at the end than you should be. I’ve seen this movie twice now and I still have questions about the characters.

Lindsay Lohan is far too old to still be doing the stroppy teenager routine, she’s my age for crying out loud, so when she did this she would have maybe been 19 or 20, it just doesn’t work. To be honest I think maybe this was a vehicle to straighten her out and get her back with top actors, considering her continuing personal troubles and still wavering career I don’t think it did the trick.

There are some good performances but most of it feels a little off or forced, I like Maya Rudolph’s performance the most, I’d only seen her in two other movies before (Away We Go & Idiocracy) so I liked seeing her again in something that gave her the opportunity to do something good. Meryl Streep doesn’t shine like usual, she is kind of pining and down cast. All of the other performances just don’t do it for me I’m afraid.
One positive is the singing performances, I liked those, just it didn’t outweigh the negatives for me, also I like singing in movies but they were not my kind of songs and went on for too long or didn’t add anything to the story.

There were too many sub plots that I just couldn’t keep up with it all. The scenery was a little bland and all in all the entire story was a bit choppy which added to the fact that this couldn’t keep my attention, to the stage where both times I’ve seen this movie I wanted to switch it off, which I have only felt with one other movie recently, and that was Away We Go.

In the end of the story nothing seemed to be achieved, I like stories where there is some sort of movement for the characters, a progression where at least someone achieves something.

Add in to everything the oddball woman who comes in her trench coat and the slightly surreal story line attached with her character and I just get confused and don’t see the necessity in this twist.

In all I just don’t get the appeal of this movie and was surprised to see some very favourable reviews of it on IMDB.com and Amazon. But that is just my own personal opinion and I respect anyone who says different. For me though this is just not my cup of tea. Sorry.

For me there was only one part I completely enjoyed that also made me laugh involving Kevin Kline and a bar! You’ll just have to watch to see what I mean.

Outcome
Headed for eBay as soon as I get myself organised.