If you caught Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep’s sister act on this year’s Academy Awards show, you’ve already had a tasty preview of the best part of Robert Altman’s latest three-ring-circus, “A Prairie Home Companion.”
As part of a lifetime-achievement Oscar presentation to Altman, Tomlin and Streep were paying tribute to the all-but-patented Altman style by performing wildly overlapping dialogue — just as they do in the movie. They’re cast as an aging singing act, the Johnson Sisters, that appears, along with the Streep character’s daughter, Lola (Lindsay Lohan), at the final program of a radio show that’s being kissed off by corporate numbers-crunchers.
Lola, who is ignored by her mother and specializes in suicide poetry, may be going out a youngster, but she’s got to come back a star. “Companion” is just that corny. It even includes a literal appearance by a capricious angel of death, a creature who hasn’t been seen on-screen in quite so bold a fashion since “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life” (1983).
The screenplay was written by Garrison Keillor, the creator of the St. Paul radio phenomenon, who also appears as himself. The movie does a lovely job of recreating the essence of Keillor’s show, though it’s definitely the PG-13-rated version, not quite suitable for NPR regulars. Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly, as a singing-cowboy duo, Dusty and Lefty, who specialize in really bad dirty jokes, see to that.
Less entertaining are Kevin Kline as an irritatingly self-conscious detective, Guy Noir, who is klutzier than Inspector Clouseau, and Tommy Lee Jones as a surly Texas visitor, identified only as Axeman, who turns up to shut down the show. Never quite real, Noir and Axeman suffer from one-note dialogue and familiar backstage theatrics.
The idea that “A Prairie Home Companion” is closing, because it hasn’t kept up with times —and its theater is about to be turned into a parking lot — is supposed to be a matter of great concern, but its demise is not credible for a moment. Keillor’s show became a success precisely because it did keep up with the times, by mixing nostalgia and sharp satire with music both new and familiar.
The movie, despite all the ominous touches, can’t help being a celebration of what Keillor accomplished. The result is one of the most amiable and laidback things Altman’s ever done. Just like his masterpiece, “Nashville,” the picture stops for long stretches as the singers deliver songs as different as “Frankie and Johnny” (with Lohan belting out Keillor’s new lyrics) and “Softly and Tenderly” (with Tomlin and Streep) and “In the Sweet By and By” (with The Guys All-Star Shoe Band).
Tomlin’s character admits at one point that singing is what keeps her sane. She always wanted her sister act to be like the Carter family (“They’re just like us, only famous”), but her disappointment doesn’t keep her down for long. When she and Streep are harmonizing, seamlessly mixing professional polish with personal feedback, “A Prairie Home Companion” is pure bliss.