Fargo/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Award Snub: Though it won two well-earned gongs, many people are still annoyed that The English Patient awalked away with all the awards on Oscar night. Still, Fargo is now considered a classic and on the AFI's 100 greatest list while The English Patient is better remembered for inspiring an episode of Seinfeld.
  • Better on DVD: Although this was a well-received production when released theatrically, a lot of the greatness of the film can only be uncovered and appreciated with repeat viewings.
  • Complete Monster: Grimsrud
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Margie's arrest of Gaear Grimsrud.
    • This is a Coen Brothers movie, so it was probably story-boarded down to the last half an inch. But when Marge, weapon drawn, yells "Police!" at Grimsrud -- and then points at the badge on her forehead -- that's crowningly awesome.
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Near the end, one of Norm's paintings of a mallard will be on a three-cent stamp, and he insists it's nothing special because "People don't much use the three-cent", when Marge says this:

Marge: Oh, for Pete's sake. Of course they do. Whenever they raise the postage, people need the little stamps.

    • Also, from earlier in the film: the look on Margie's face when Norm says he'll make her eggs, even when she insists he go back to sleep.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Pretty much the whole score, but particularly the music during the aforementioned arrest.
    • And that bit at the very beginning when the car is cresting the hill in the opening credits.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Jean's father adamantly refuses to hand over the money if he doesn't get his daughter back first; he gets shot in the stomach for trying to be a hero, but before dying, squeezes of a shot that grazes Carl's cheek, leaving him whining, bleeding all over the place, and screaming like a bitch.
  • Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: There are a few arguments over what the lumberjack statue is supposed to represent.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Marge's meeting in the city with her old classmate Mike. At first the scene seems extraneous, but when Marge learns the truth behind Mike's dialogue the next day, during a phone call from her friend in Brainerd, she has the most subtle Eureka Moment and is able to look at Jerry in a different way. Noted in Ebert's second review of the movie.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: To people who watched the film before 2008, Sarah Palin talks like the people in Fargo. To people who watched it after, the people in Fargo talk like Sarah Palin. Either way, you laugh (and cringe a little).
  • Hollywood Homely: Averted; most of the actors are kinda funny lookin'.
  • It Was His Sled: At the end of the movie somebody puts somebody else in a woodchipper. Fortunately, that's not a huge plot spoiler. It just kind of ruins the shock value of the scene.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Grimsrud shooting three people when he and Showalter are in danger of getting caught by the sheriff. Showalter shooting Jerry's father-in-law.
    • The former is certainly reprehensible, but his killing of defenceless, terrified Mrs. Lundegaard off-camera merely because she wouldn't stop crying (when they were miles away from anyone who could have heard them anyway) perhaps pushes him even further over the horizon.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The wood chipper.
    • Grimsrud in general. Stoic, pancake-craving giant to Ax Crazy in zero point two five seconds.
  • Squick: Showalter with a hole shot through his cheek., and sight and especially gruesome sound of Showalter's leg being jammed into a woodchipper while the rest of his body lies shredded is a big red triangle spouting outward from said machine.
  • Tear Jerker: Jerry talking to his son about his kidnapped mom. The Dramatic Irony makes it so much worse.
  • The Woobie:
    • Jerry, for a while at least, even though his stupendous lack of foresight results in his wife's death.
    • Jerry's wife is even more of a woobie.
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