DIRECTED BY: ROBERT ALTMAN
STARRING: GARRISON KEILLOR, MERYL STREEP
ROBERT Altman's recent death from cancer lends his final film added poignancy. It's a big-screen adaptation of American broadcasting institution Garrison Keillor's titular radio show, a folksy, old-fashioned Midwestern entertainment extravaganza that, as the film has it, is about to be given the chop by the station's new corporate owners. Naturally, then, the spectre of death hangs heavy, but the film is far from maudlin as Altman once again assembles a dream cast to examine the behind-the-scenes quirks and eccentricities of a group of performers, Nashville-style.
These include a priceless Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as a pair of singing sisters; JohnC Reilly and Woody Harrelson as a cowboy double-act prone to hilariously bad jokes; Lindsay Lohan as Streep's suicide-obsessed daughter and Keillor himself as the show's master of ceremonies. His "every show's your last show" mantra sets the film's philosophical tone and it's hard not to read this as Altman summing up his own approach to life: using every opportunity provided to make the films he wanted to make. A great end to a great career.
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