A Prairie Home Companion -- 2006 -- PG-13

This is an interesting offering for someone of the post-radio generation who can't fully relate to the very concept this movie represents. Sure, we all have radios in our cars, but to have an entire hour and a half radio show where the songs aren't prerecorded and the commercials aren't either? That's different for us, but was once as normal as live news broadcasts (via satellite from Iraq) are today.

The Prairie Home Companion follows the cast of this radio show during their final broadcast performance. The station that broadcasts it sold out to a modern company who wants to axe the show after this final night where a live audience watches the show as it broadcasts its acts, commercials, and songs live from the decorated stage. We are introduced to each of the characters who perform onstage and backstage, and how they really feel about this final show. Some are distraught and don't know what to know, while the leader seems oddly detached from the proceedings. There is no plot threading through this beyond getting to know these people as their life as they know it comes to an end when the curtain comes down. It's sad in many ways because we are told of the inevitable before it begins, but its enjoyable to watch them put it all behind them for one final evening of performances only to rejoin the real world offstage.

But we're not without a really weird and pointless flaw (in my opinion, anyway). We're introduced at the beginning to a woman dressed in a white trenchcoat, and we wonder who she is and what she wants. Well, her true purpose blows the whole realism of the story. Her presence isn't even touching. Her backstory is all right, but the whole story could have gone without her and  have been far better for the deletion.

This is material based apparently on a play and it really feels like it due to its single set feel throughout. It's nice to see the sheer numbers running around trying to make it all work, the characters are nice, and some of the jokes are quite funny (particularly the final set told by Dusty and Lefty), but it teeters on the edge of being slow. Could be our viewpoint of modern movies and their high action as opposed to the old school films of lots of chatter and character building, but I've seen better paced movies with less action.

So overall, it's not a bad film. The character are nice, and the story makes sense. The ending was a bit cheesy and ambiguous, but barring the "dangerous woman" it was pretty good.