This Prairie might be too homey

Irony and sincerity collide, dissolve, and collide again, infuriatingly, in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. Young men of Cuban descent didn't grow up listening to Garrison Keillor's corny fireside cats (but I did read a lengthy excerpt from Lake Woebegon Days in a 1986 issue of Reader's Digest, if that counts), not when they had their abuelos and tios' domino-side chats to parse. Wry, affectionate, and often inert, APC doesn't know whether to gently prod these amiable second-raters for their gumption or let them have their fun; Altman doesn't seem to know either, which is part of its minor charm (the film's villain, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is disposed of – I mean this literally – in a manner that can only be described as defiantly listless). The film's about 10 minutes too long.

Lindsey Lohan is fine. Kevin Kline plays a hopeless part with a deadpan skill which gets more surprising as the movie progresses and you realize he's still getting away with it. Lily Tomlin proves once again that she should be in every movie ever made (the closeup of her legs in I ::Heart:: Huckabees is one of the most generous moments a youngish director ever offered an actress over forty). RoboStreep, engine purring but not yet revved up, gets into the spirit of the proceedings; she and Tomlin sure don't look like sisters but you'd never know it. This is minor Altman to be sure; like Cookie's Fortune, perfidy is intimated without anyone paying it any mind.