5 out of 5

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Its almost embarrassing how good the Cohens are at making movies. Even when the material isnt as meaty – Ladykillers as an example – theyll still bring this elevated awareness of FILM to the project. Fargo, of course, was no exception, and simply built on their still-growing resume at the time. Many of their tales involve a simple matter or a simple desire gone awry, and whether its pursued for a combination of noir, or comedy, or horror, the formula works especially well with the Cohens juxtaposition of scene and characters. I dont really need to say much about Fargo, because youve heard it all either at the time of release or in the other 600+ reviews here. Everyone is shockingly fantastic, and odd comedy is brought to such a bleak topic (husband stages his wifes kidnapping in order to hopefully get some money from her wealthy father… but murder and greed cause things to go wrong from the start) yet done so without making the gravity of things feel cheap or lessened. These themes that the Cohens explore – Stormares character being the evil, McDormands very normal pregnant/marriage life being that odd human desire to go on – just shone so bright against the blanket of white that covers many amazingly shot scenes. Whatever. Its dark and funny, will seem silly to some, but this is… will be… a film people look back to for inspiration.