The Straight Story

Rating: Null/10 (22 August 2008)

"When a film like Fargo is successful, then clearly nothing makes sense." â€“ Ethan Coen
"The story that follows is about Minnesota. It evokes the abstract landscape of our childhood - a bleak, windswept tundra, resembling Siberia except for its Ford dealerships and Hardee's restaurants. It aims to be both homey and exotic, and pretends to be true." - Ethan Coen
Jerry Lundegaard (William H Macy) is a car salesman who urgently needs money. Out of desperation he hires two criminals to kidnap his wife, his intention being to extort 1 million dollars from her wealthy father. But in typical noir fashion, his plan falls apart.
This is another tightly wound neo-noir by the Coen brothers, but like David Lynch's "Straight Story", it's also a reactionary piece aimed at its audience. Lynch followed up the critically derided "Lost Highway" with "The Straight Story", a film which pretended to be homey, realistic and "straight", when in fact it was a disturbing tale filled with hidden horrors and disguised menace.
"Fargo" likewise pretends to be a straight story. After audiences and critics scorned the ridiculously cartoonish "Hudsucker Proxy", the Coen's released the more somber "Fargo, presenting it to their audience as a film based on a real event, and using subdued camera work and a great deal of restraint to lend the film a sense of authenticity.
But as Police Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) learns when she meets her old friend Mike Yanagita, things shouldn't be taken at face value. So though touted as a "serious film" based on a "factual event", "Fargo" is really an exercise in seeing how FAR the Coens can GO (hence the title) without cracking up laughing. The film pretends to be based on a true story, when in fact it is a work of fiction borne from the playful minds of the Coens. Virtually every scene is skewed or warped, filled with moments of repressed humour, ridiculous mannerisms and laughably named characters. The con, or joke, is how far the audience is suckered into accepting the on screen follies. This sort of audience contempt would reach nihilistic proportions in the Coen's later films.
8.5/10 - A slick slice of neo-noir, not as inventive or daring as "The Big Lebowski", but its simplicity allows it to reach a kind of lean perfection. Still, the film has two flaws. Firstly, all these formalists (De Palma, Mamet, Leone, Tarantino, Coens - Hollywood's reigning post-modernists) always serve up reheated seconds. "Fargo" thus works more as a slick photocopy or parody of noir, all the imperfections airbrushed and whittled away by history, the Coens more interested in reproduction and ironic distance, than tapping into something genuine.
The second flaw is the Coen's increasing nihilism. Art's all a big joke, either an unknowing prank on the audience or an invitation for artist and audience to, in tandem, mock the follies of the schmucks on screen. The Coens pretend to deal with tragedy, but rarely do they tap into any kind of affecting sadness.