With "Gosford Park", Robert Altman was at the top of his game, juggling multiple characters, stories, genres, and, of course, audio tracks 'The Company' with Neve Campbell, used the director's unique approach to directing in order to tease the audience with incomplete narratives and undeveloped clichés and expectations of the dance movie genre. Altman managed to turn it into a great depiction of the creative process at work. These recent successes together with a dash of style from his masterpiece Nashville would seem great precursors to his newest film "Prairie Home Companion". The film boasts Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline,Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, WoodyHarrelson, and Tommy Lee Jones. Here is the opportunity to take great actors into the wonderful and vanishing world of live radio and illuminate the magic of a vanishing American art form .It could combine the performance style of "The Company" with the layered stories of "Nashville. The film ought to also be a tour de force of acting, comedy, and Americana. But it is instead a terrible disappointment.
I've been a fan and listener of the show for 25 years, but the script is the main offender. Keillor's screenplay may work as a concept on the page or in the pitch. It may work in parts as a radio play. But it makes no sense, has no credibility, no depth, no dimension, and no sense as a movie. All the features of the radio show lose their charm when brought to the screen.
It is nice to see actors we love and respect doing their own singing, and having a good time, but none of the acts we see bring to the film any of the warmth or credibility of the radio show. The character of detective Guy Noir, humorous on radio, is played Kevin Kline as the theater manager (I think). Is he still a detective in the movie? Why does he narrate the film in a noir VO? What is he supposed to be? His slapstick performance is made up of old Inspector Clouseau shtick and bumbling antics. There are characters so flat that it sometimes feels like a high school play particularly silly are the characters forced on Virginia Madsen (as an angel!?) and Tommy Lee Jones (if you can call his a character at all).
The movie version of the show is "brought to you by Powdermilk Biscuits (heavens they're tasty and expeditious)". This is mentioned five times. But the rousing hoedown theme with which the 'commercial' is accompanied on radio is never once played. Even the ordinarily very funny April 1st "Joke Show" from the radio's PHC is rendered as a series of gags sung by "Lefty and Dusty" (Harrelson and Reilly) while Tim Russell, who is actually the show's sound effects man, mugs offstage. Butch Thompson, once the show's great piano player, is tossed a bone as a 'clarinetist'. Meryl Streep is a fun and plausible singer, and the others do pretty well. Real musicians are stuck here and there to add pizazz. Amidst all the star power, Linsday Lohan is the most credible singer. OK. So this is a MOVIE, you say a "fictional" Prairie Home Companion. Well - THIS show wouldn't last a week. The show simply lacks the ambiance of a warm-hearted live radio show.
Everybody is either mugging or simply having such a gosh darn good time we're not supposed to notice that there is no center. It's nice to see movie stars having fun but fro my $10.00 I'd like some story or characters to relate. You can jam on your own time.
Altman seems to have lost control in the midst of a superficial screenplay and bevy of powerhouse actors enjoying themselves to indulgence. They are obviously thrilled to be working with Garrison Kiellor and Robert Altman, each a genius in his own right, but they can add nothing to these cardboard characters. Lily Tomlin is relentlessly grating, Reilly and Harrelson are fun to watch as they deliver Keillor's funny songs, but they add nothing. You can see Streep doing her professional best to maintain the spirit of liveness and improvisation, but it feels false because there is no script. Of course this can be exactly how an Altman film unfolds. There are circling cameras, mirrors, lots of live shooting, multiple characters and dialogue over dialogue, but it all feels forced, like an Altman parody. Surprisingly it is Lindsay Lohan, who having to present less than fully dimensional characters since childhood, manages to give energy and personality to her thinly character. It's too bad that the rest of the film couldn't do the same.
I've been a fan and listener of the show for 25 years, but the script is the main offender. Keillor's screenplay may work as a concept on the page or in the pitch. It may work in parts as a radio play. But it makes no sense, has no credibility, no depth, no dimension, and no sense as a movie. All the features of the radio show lose their charm when brought to the screen.
It is nice to see actors we love and respect doing their own singing, and having a good time, but none of the acts we see bring to the film any of the warmth or credibility of the radio show. The character of detective Guy Noir, humorous on radio, is played Kevin Kline as the theater manager (I think). Is he still a detective in the movie? Why does he narrate the film in a noir VO? What is he supposed to be? His slapstick performance is made up of old Inspector Clouseau shtick and bumbling antics. There are characters so flat that it sometimes feels like a high school play particularly silly are the characters forced on Virginia Madsen (as an angel!?) and Tommy Lee Jones (if you can call his a character at all).
The movie version of the show is "brought to you by Powdermilk Biscuits (heavens they're tasty and expeditious)". This is mentioned five times. But the rousing hoedown theme with which the 'commercial' is accompanied on radio is never once played. Even the ordinarily very funny April 1st "Joke Show" from the radio's PHC is rendered as a series of gags sung by "Lefty and Dusty" (Harrelson and Reilly) while Tim Russell, who is actually the show's sound effects man, mugs offstage. Butch Thompson, once the show's great piano player, is tossed a bone as a 'clarinetist'. Meryl Streep is a fun and plausible singer, and the others do pretty well. Real musicians are stuck here and there to add pizazz. Amidst all the star power, Linsday Lohan is the most credible singer. OK. So this is a MOVIE, you say a "fictional" Prairie Home Companion. Well - THIS show wouldn't last a week. The show simply lacks the ambiance of a warm-hearted live radio show.
Everybody is either mugging or simply having such a gosh darn good time we're not supposed to notice that there is no center. It's nice to see movie stars having fun but fro my $10.00 I'd like some story or characters to relate. You can jam on your own time.
Altman seems to have lost control in the midst of a superficial screenplay and bevy of powerhouse actors enjoying themselves to indulgence. They are obviously thrilled to be working with Garrison Kiellor and Robert Altman, each a genius in his own right, but they can add nothing to these cardboard characters. Lily Tomlin is relentlessly grating, Reilly and Harrelson are fun to watch as they deliver Keillor's funny songs, but they add nothing. You can see Streep doing her professional best to maintain the spirit of liveness and improvisation, but it feels false because there is no script. Of course this can be exactly how an Altman film unfolds. There are circling cameras, mirrors, lots of live shooting, multiple characters and dialogue over dialogue, but it all feels forced, like an Altman parody. Surprisingly it is Lindsay Lohan, who having to present less than fully dimensional characters since childhood, manages to give energy and personality to her thinly character. It's too bad that the rest of the film couldn't do the same.