April 18th - P is for A Prairie Home Companion

April 18th - P is for A Prairie Home Companion

 

Today I watched another one of my favorite movies. A Prairie Home Companion is a live radio show broadcast on NPR (National Public Radio) which features music and stories. It’s something that I’ve been brought up on, so I can catch some of the references in this film. There are some, and while I don’t think it’s impossible to understand the story, it does help to know a little about the radio program.

 

The story itself involves most of the characters from the radio show from Guy Noir, a completely fictional character, to Garrison Keillor, the actual host of the show. Unfortunately this story doesn’t really go anywhere very fast. There’s a lot of long monologue type conversations where characters talk about some ambiguous past and reminisce about how the show used to be before they decided to close it down. This whole story revolves around the fictional “last show” of A Prairie Home Companion. Throughout the whole movie, the show goes on and the band keeps playing on stage as if they were actually doing a show. I really like it, but if I wanted to hear all the music and stories, I’d just go and listen to the radio show.

 

SO, to bring this to an early conclusion, you really just have to know the context before you see the movie. You’d understand the moral of the story and probably still find it inspiring, but you need some knowledge of the radio show before you go. The characters are played by some incredibly believable actors who can also sing beautifully too. They also get props for trying to throw in a little twist with that lady with the white trench coat, but you’d have to see it to understand. 3 out of 5.

A Prairie Home Companion cover from IMDB

Stars off of Google Images