FRANCES MCDORMAND as Marge Gunderson in FARGO

FRANCES MCDORMAND

FRANCES MCDORMAND as Marge Gunderson in FARGO

Nothing is as it seems on the surface. Frances McDormand goes very far to bring us back to where her character begins and ends. Fresh, pure heart and calm. Sweet by choice. Some can’t see the depth in this character. But this is a seriously smart – layered performance – But to the novice movie going it may feel like a one note caricature. You have to wait to the end to see it - the looks in the review mirror - educating and scolding her ‘bad guy’ – that’s when you see glimpses of the real woman underneath the simple big pregnant gal with the big twang and heart of gold.

The people with the badge, the ones that are good police men and women identify with the opposing forces with the bad guys. This is a cliche in and of itself, but it’s true. They are hidden criminals themselves – choosing to do good rather than do bad. It's almost as if the badge keeps them from being behind bars. The job imposes their moral duty and choices. When Marge tells clumsy co-worker, when she gently chides, "I’m not sure that I agree with you 100% on your police work there, Lou." – For those of you who felt this was a one joke – one note caricature performance – watch closely Frances McDormand’s face in these moments. A lot is going on – there’s a fascination with his ineptness – then calm patience – back to an inner smile and then sweetness. She decides she’s going to walk him through it. But there’s a flicker, just a hint of masculine sternness, perhaps, underneath it all, she’d just like to smack his face. It's brilliant. Strong lady. It’s hard to do good.

Right before this you had the classic moment of her bending over – "ut oh" morning sickness. "I think I’m going to barf”. Tough to have the best policeman in your area eight months pregnant. Our first meeting Marge is almost 45/50 minutes into the film. Rare for a best actress win. But Like Geraldine Page or Anthony Hopkins. You don’t need big screen time to make a big impression.

Frances McDormand has a difficult tasks of saying one thing – all the while having a string of thoughts that sift through the multiple options and evils. She plays up her humor and uses goodness with abandon to get what she wants. ‘Kill em with kindness’ could be her mantra.. It’s lonely to behave morally in this world that has celebrated its own greed and corruption. Great themes. McDormand goes deep to play a simpleton - this small town folk hero. As McDormand has said, “There’s a musicality to the language of the script, every single ‘yeah’ and ‘you betcha’ was in the script”

She is clever, but she outsmarts them because the men keep underestimating her. She talks nice, but she's actually pretty brave and tough and thinks like a con man- consider the scene in which she confronts Shep - "that right there would be a violation of your parole".

Plus, she never lets up on the details - the way she keeps on at Macy over the Tan Sierra is the core of how she cracked the case. Because when she meets him she knows – After a brief couple moments – This is the guy.

And Joel Coen has never handled performers better. He balances Macy’s Jerry and McDormand’s Marge against each other in a way that steadies the picture even though they have only two scenes together. You’re constantly comparing Jerry’s twisting on a hook to Marge’s steadiness, his agonized impotence seeps deeper into your bones than anything else in any of the Coen brothers’ movies and Marge, with her big blue eyes and mournful under bite, is there to comfort you with an incomprehension you can only contemplate, like being born without original sin. The Coens may not be able to get an adequate sense of horror from a massive spray of blood in the snow, but then the picture isn’t Jerry’s tragedy. It’s a black comedy about the resilient sanity of a woman who cannot understand how that blood came to be there. Marge cleans up Jerry’s mess like an ideal mom who knows, without even having done the comparison-shopping, which paper towels are the most absorbent. But somewhere deep within her – knows exactly how this person operates and ticks – how they all about how and why – and go the extra mile. To play this role just cheery and unaware wouldn’’t have rang true. She knows – You know she knows. But she chooses day after day to do the right thing. And yet she still wants to bring a child into this mess. “One more month”, her last line …Good stuff. There are die hard Emily Watson fans that still can’t sleep all through night knowing Frances won the Oscar that year – but I think they both got what they deserved. Emily got a career and Frances got rewarded for this signature piece of acting.