This was a really nice touch in the movie- Throughout the whole movie, even as things are getting more and more stressful for Jerry, a point is made to always show him stomping and wiping his boots clean on the mat before walking in to take them off- But finally, after stuffing his father in law’s corpse in his trunk, he realizes how fucked he is, and for the first time doesn’t wipe his feet, because, what’s the point now?
I love the dialogue as he sitting on that chair-
Scotty (who is obviously sick with worry about his mom) “Stan Grossman called- twice”
Jerry " …ok"
Scotty “Arent you going to call him back??”
Jerry “I… I’m going to bed”
Isn’t there something about the son wanting to be excused from the dinner table so he can go eat at McDonald’s?
Something’s not right in that household, and hasn’t been for a long time. Maybe it’s just the stress from the father-in-law.
I think he’s just a normal kid who wants to go hand out with his friends.
Just dropped in to say I think Frances McDormand is first-rate in anything she appears in. You betcha!
Sure, he was crazy. But how’d he get that way? From a lifetime of rejection, maybe?
Sure, she was superficially friendly, in the way that every other damn character except the criminals was. They all do the “you betcha” polite shit as a cover for their real personalities and real feelings. They may not even be aware anymore that they’re putting masks, after a lifetime of doing it. Didn’t that come across at all? Wasn’t Mike shown for the purpose of showing that the characters’ friendly behavior really was superficial, forced on them by a lifetime of being Minnesotans, and that what lay underneath was sometimes pretty ugly? Or did tnat not come across other than in the kidnapping story?
If not, what purpose do YOU think the Mike scene served? Was it just filler after all, weird for the sake of weird? I really doubt that.
Spectre, she did get an Oscar for it there, you betcha.
No - remember you only hear her half of the conversation. So the way it goes, I believe, is that she asks about a good place to get lunch, then the person she’s asking asks where she’s staying (because she wants to recommend someplace nearby). So Margie tells her “The Radisson” and then the other person recommends a restaurant, which Margie wants to know the reasonableness thereof.
We already went over what the damn purpose was. Marge is talking to an old friend on the phone and the friend reveals Mike to be a liar and it dawns on Marge that if she was so easily fooled by Mike, then maybe she’s being lied to by someone else.
And it needs to be reasonable because she’s going to eat a lot.
ETA: To change the subject, I think a lot of the debate about the scene with Mike isn’t the scene itself, but that Mike is Asian, which is a bit jarring, to say the least. We wouldn’t think twice if this was Los Angeles, for instance, but Minneapolis? My guess. It’s the Coens being the Coens. I can almost see it: “Ooh, ooh, let’s make Mike Asian!” “Oh, yeah, that’ll mess with their minds!”
And she can shoot!
The Mike scene reminded Marge that you can’t always believe what people tell you, and things aren’t always the way you think they are, so maybe she should go back and talk to Jerry again. She didn’t suspect him at the time, but she wanted to know how Jerry knew that there weren’t any cars missing from the lot. She thought that he might be mistaken about that and wanted to make sure. Because of the Mike thing.
I think you’re asking the wrong question to get the discussion you want. The scene itself exists to convey to Marge that people lie, even people she knows from her childhood willl lie to her. The question you want answered is why is Mike Asian? The reason, I believe, is exactly the opposite of the one you’ve proposed. Mike’s an Asian talking with a rural Minnesotan accent to show that it’s behavior, speech modes, and the like that form the us/them divide in Minnesota. Remember that Marge takes him at face value, until she hears from her friend.
On a completely different note, I really disliked the way they shot the statue of Paul Bunyan to make it look creepy and frightening. Growing up, it was always the sign that we were going to stop for a meal on the way to Grandma’s house.
That’s one of them there defensive wounds.
Redwing, I like your explanation a lot better than mine.
Tan Ciera! Tan Ciera!
Why does Jerry Lundeguard need money so bad, that he has to hire some ex-cons to kidnap his wife?
Seems kinda drastic, and over the top if he just wanted money, why now?
Why is he in a mess that he has to borrow, embezzle, money on cars that dont exist?
Whats his problem with money?
My take on Jerry’s motivation:
Jerry needed the cash to swing a real-estate deal to garner himself some big bucks, enough to feel independent in his own right and get out from underneath the thumb of his father-in-law.
He tried to borrow the money to swing said deal from his FIL by telling him about the deal. His FIL recognized it as a lucrative proposition, but decided he’d do the deal himself, paying Jerry a pittance as a “finder’s fee”.
So Jerry went ahead and arranged the kidnapping, to get the money from his FIL, and do the deal himself.
“Well, that’s…I’m not gonna get into…See, I just need the money.”
The mystery of why Jerry needs the money isn’t ever spelled out, but it’s not very mysterious. He’s under the thumb of his wealthy domineering father in law. He’s got a middling job selling cars, but it doesn’t compare to his father in law. And so he starts cooking the books to bring in a little extra money now and then. And then he has to steal a bit more to cover up the first bit. And pretty soon he’s juggling large sums of money. And it’s going to crash, and everyone will see that he’s a worthless crook, who Jeanie never should have married in the first place. So he tries to arrange the parking lot deal, but Wade jerks it out from under him. And so he goes ahead with the kidnapping scheme, because he doesn’t want his wife to know what a loser he is.
I don’t think it’s just that she never considered that people lie before she met Mike. I mean, she’s a cop, after all. I think what set her off is that Mike was giving off this weird, desperate vibe. When she talks to their mutual friend, and realizes that his desperation is from covering something up, she recognizes that Jerry had that same desperate air about him. So she goes back to see what he’s covering up.
I also agree with Lemur, that there was no single big secret about what Jerry was doing with the money. He’d been embezzling from the dealership to keep his wife in the style she’d been accustomed to when she was growing up, and it just kept snowballing until he couldn’t see any other way out of it. The parking lot was another attempt to save his ass, and not the reason for his stealing.
I’m not sure that I agree with you 100% on your police work there, Lou.
You’ve seen other Coen brothers movies, yah? Then you know that the Coen brothers are perfectly capable of being weird for the sake of weird. You could play the whole scene exactly the same with a Swedish guy, and it would mean exactly the same thing. Except, Mike being Asian adds a surreal little twist to the scene. Marge doesn’t hate or despise Mike. She’s sorry for him, even when she finds out his story was false.
I think the Coens just got off on having an Asian man speaking in a completely Midwestern/Minnesota accent and not some “movie Asian” accent. That’s one thing that struck me. I see it in real life whenever I meet a Thai who was born and raised in, say, California. They just sound weird, because it’s not the accent I’m used to.
It’s not surprising the Coen Brothers got all of the little details in the movie right, seeing as they’re from a Minneapolis suburb. Shortly after Fargo came out, there was a forgettable film called Feeling Minnesota, starring Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz. They were Minnesotans, and the film was set mostly in Minnesota, but everyone had bland non-accents.
I disagree. I don’t think it says anything at all about the intelligence of Minnesotans as a whole. There were a lot of stupid people in the movie, but Jerry was an idiot and his whole scheme was stupid. Naturally, the people involved were going to be stupid too.
And what’s stupid about chasing down a murderer when you’re pregnant? She was a police chief. It’s her job to chase down murderers and stuff.