Dir.
Robert Altman, US, 2006, 106 mins
Cast: Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily
Tomlin
Review by Carol Allen
I have always been an Altman fan, particularly
of his ensemble work, of which this is an example and a most
appropriate movie for what turned out to be his final film.
The title refers to a real life American
radio show featuring homely humour and country music that
has been hosted for thirty years by Garrison Keillor, who
wrote the screenplay for the film and plays himself in it.
The show is apparently still running. But the premise of
the story is that the radio station has been bought by a
big conglomerate, whose representative, The Axeman (Tommy
Lee Jones), is arriving this very night to close them down,
so this is the very last show.
There's a distinct air of nostalgia
about the whole piece but in an unsentimental and often
comic way. There are also echoes of Nashville in its music
content, though on a smaller, folksier scale. Although
Keillor
started the show in the seventies, the style of the radio
programme with its amusing live commercials and use of a
spot effects man harks back to the fifties or sixties, while
Virginia Madsen, a femme fatale in a white trench coat, who's
hovering around backstage and turns out to be the Angel of
Death, is straight out of forties film noir. In fact, the
film appears to exist in an appealing time warp all of its
own.
Like Altman's other ensemble pieces, there is a wealth of
colourful characters, including Keillor himself with his
crumpled, lived-in face and owl-eyed glasses, who sings as
well as writing and doing whimsical standup.
Streep and Tomlin play the two survivors of what was once
a four sister country music act. Streep is the gentle one,
full of reminiscences about their past glory days, while
Tomlin is predictably the tougher smart talker.
The narrator figure is one Guy Noir (Kline), a Chandleresque
private eye turned security guard with more than a touch of
Hercule Poirot. A sweet and secret love affair is going
on between veteran Chuck (L.Q. Jones), one of the artists
and the equally elderly tea lady. Woody Harrelson and
John C. Reilly are a singing cowboy act, whose rendition
of a very rude and funny number about bad jokes brings
the house down. There is a plethora of very good, foot
tapping music, as is to be expected, but beneath the
jollity lies
the melancholy associated with the end of an era and with
death itself. Streep's moody teenage daughter (Lindsay Lohan)
is writing poems about suicide, Lee Jones lurks menacingly
in the shadows, ready to wield his axe, and the Angel of
Death has serious business to conduct this night. But death
is not necessarily a matter for despair. Once she has claimed
the one she has been sent to fetch, the Angel tells the others
that "the death of an old man is not a tragedy. Thank
him for all his love and care".
The sentiment is, of course, given added poignancy by
the death of Altman himself at the age of 81 so soon
after finishing the movie. The line and indeed the film
itself are both appropriate epitaphs for a man whose
final creation turns out to be a celebration of life,
which embraces both death and the fact that life itself
survives and moves on.
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