If, like me, you've been a fan of the live PBS radio broadcast that is a step back in time to a gentler era where you could count on the participants to be warm and friendly, and the content to remain non-offensive and family safe, and you've waited for the movie version to appear on DVD so you could rent it, save your time and money because you'll be greatly disappointed.
Like a lot of things that attempt to cross into another medium, A Prairie Home Companion falls short of expectations. The ironic part is that the show has been broadcast on television several times, and when it stayed true to its format, it was even more enjoyable. You saw the faces behind the familiar cast voices, the musicians and singers who produced incredibly simple but enjoyable music, and the sound effects people who brought humorous skits to life the way it was once done in old-time radio.
Missing, most especially, is the comforting, familiar, and always moving monologue delivered by Garrison Keillor as he talks off-the-cuff about his home town, Lake Wobegon, "where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."
Disappointment begins in the opening moments as Keillor's radio private eye character, Guy Noir, enters played poorly by one of my favorite actors, Kevin Kline. The script is rambling and pointless with a failed attempt to create a story which includes a theater-saving angel that confusingly, some can see, but others cannot -- at different times.
The worst inclusion is actor Woody Harrelson who plays half of the cowboy singing team of Dusty and Lefty, as they pace the hallways passing gas and whose song lyrics and adult joke telling are reminiscent of vaudeville strip shows when the audience was comprised of only drunken men.
American nostalgia, Midwestern charm, and corny Lutheran jokes are gone, replaced with attempts to mix-in unfamiliar characters who die backstage, obsessively write teenage suicide poetry, or babble endlessly over each other's lines so that the dialog is completely obliterated, rendering the content incidental. What portions that are enjoyable, such as most of the music, is frequently interrupted with some meaningless cut to what is going on backstage.
A Prairie Home Companion, the movie, has forfeited its charm and wit in favor of reaching a younger audience who have probably never listened or watched it before, and allowed its character to be turned into a series of fart jokes. In its present form, it's neither welcome in my home, or a companion at all.
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