Not great Company...

In honor of Robert Altman's newest production - A Prairie Home Companion, which I haven't seen yet - I picked up The Company, his preceding film.

Let me open by saying that I'm a fan of Altman and have been since I first saw The Player when I was at Wabash. Since then, I've worked backwards through much of his ouevre, and he has enough good karma (really dharma, I know) built up with me that I'm willing to give his films a lot of rope. At the beginning of each of them, I often find myself confused and wanting a more linear story told a little more overtly. His movies are often difficult to get into because of his style of verlapping dialogue that never seems to be quite high enough in the audio mix, but his finest films come together seemingly with no effort, producing a moving and engaging story.

Sadly, this film never did that for me. I started out confused as to what the storyline was and never quite figured it out. We see Neve Campbell - lead actress, producer, apparent driving force behind the movie - get a new beau, burn some toast, get her shot at glory, and injure herself - but she's not the storyline. Somebody names Justin complains and demands an apology, but we never figure out why or what his deal is. A clearly rookie character is introduced and focused on for a bit, suggesting that his story will move to the forefront, and it never does.

The best and worst reviews of The Company over at metacritic are correct. The best says that "[l]ike many Altman movies, this is less a dramatic story to follow than an atmospheric environment to visit", and the worst "[w]hen The Company owns up to what it is -– a performance piece -– it’s glorious. Everything else -– the window-dressing of a fiction film -– just gums up that gloriousness."

No review of the film, however, would be complete without discussing the performance pieces that both punctuate and interrupt the film. The entire film works beautifully with Chicago's Joffrey Ballet company, and the dance company is marvelous in performance. The performance pieces - only one of which are fashioned with Campbell in a dominant role - are the best part of the film. They are equisitely filmed and, at times, moving pieces. The problem with them is that few of them further the meandering and drifting storylines. As performance pieces, they are wonderful and richly deserving of documenting. In this way, the film reminds me a bit of Purple Rain - better as concert film than as film.

The film rambles - and I'm okay with that. The company dances - beautifully. The storylines never come together into anything more than the gossamer wisps that they appear to be - I'm not really okay with that.