A Prairie Home Companion - DVD Review

A last hurrah from the late, great Robert Altman, A Prairie Home Companion makes for a benign send-off. Full of throwaway folksy humour, it’s the kind of movie you can wrap around yourself like a warm, furry rug. It’s based on humorist Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio show of the same name, broadcast weekly from the Fitzgerald Theatre in Saint Paul – the fiction here being that a Texan corporation has bought the premises and plans to turn it into a parking lot. Fittingly, this is one of Altman’s trademark ensemble pieces, full of overlapping dialogue and meandering camera moves. A peerless cast – Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, John C Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Virginia Madsen, Kevin Kline, Tommy Lee Jones, Keillor himself – bounce off each other with practised grace. Disc two of this double-platter is liberally stacked with interviews, outtakes and musical numbers that match those in the film.