Triumph of parts over whole

Rating: 9/10 (6 August 2000)

There are many incidental pleasures in "Fargo", but where's the structure? I recall reading a definition in one of those concepts-for-which-we-have-no-words dictionaries: "a book in which everything is clear except the author's purpose in writing it". Here is the cinematic equivalent.
For those who want to excuse the film's messiness as the result of being based on a true story ... well, guys, I don't know how to say this: it isn't. That "the events you are about to see" opening statement is a simple lie. They made it all up. I don't know about you, but I'm not inclined to just shrug my shoulders and say, "oh, well"; this is AT BEST the Coen brothers' shameful way of manipulating us into doing their work for them. They should use craft to make us accept their stories, not deceit. No doubt they can pass it all off easily enough as a postmodern joke, but to tell the truth, I'd thought the Coen brothers were above postmodern jokes - and they are. "Barton Fink" was one of the best films of the 1990s. "Fargo", thanks to its shapelessness, fails to live up to the other three Coen works I've seen. (In case you're interested, the remaining two are "Miller's Crossing" and "The Hudsucker Proxy".)
And yet, and yet ... Particular plot elements, individual scenes, certain characters and aspects of people's characters, are so fascinating, so artfully drawn ... it's frustrating. Lundegaard is a wonderful character. He's the kind of man who stumbles from one weak act to the next and would probably hate himself if he stopped to think about his actions at all. It was very clever of the Coens to begin his story in the middle. We're never told exactly what fraud he's trying to cover up by kidnapping his wife; but we know, we just KNOW, that he committed THAT to cover up some lesser fraud, and the lesser fraud was in turn a way of saving face after he'd done some other thing, and that when we trace the chain of events back to its source we'll find ... in all likelihood, nothing. Marge Gunderson is also a wonderful character. She's proof that someone can be deeply, deeply good without being dull, or getting on our nerves. Take the superb scene where she meets her old school friend in a restaurant ... but I'm reminded of what's wrong with "Fargo", for what's THAT scene doing in THIS movie? I can't make it out. "Fargo" really baffles me. So many good parts, a curiously unsatisfying whole; great throughout, good overall.