Fargo Season One - Cheap Thoughts

Yes, I'm late, I said a long time ago that there's just too much damn good television shows to watch, but I'm finally making my way through some of them. So, Fargo season one, this is the television adaptation of the acclaimed Coen Brothers film of the same name, it takes place in a small town in Minnesota and follows the story of Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) who in a fit of rage kills his wife, and ends up getting roped in with a psychotic hitman (Billy Bob Thorton), all the while two small town cops Molly (Allison Tolman) and Gus (Colin Hanks) try to solve the murder.

Fargo the film, is quite possibly my favourite Coen Brothers film, and after seeing the talent involved in the television show, and the high praise it received, I was excited to watch it, and you know what? It was a damn good show.

Now I could talk all about how great a job the actors did-especially Billy Bob Thorton who gave the best performance I've ever seen from him. Or how amazing the directing was, creating effective suspense through minimal set-up. Or maybe even point out the small flaws with the show such as the bad CGI or some convenient plot points...so I guess I just did.

What I want to talk about is the big selling point behind Fargo as a franchise, the stories they are "based" on. For those who don't know, both Fargo the film, and Fargo the series open with the same text, saying that it's based on a true story, but out of respect for the victims, they change the names. This however, is a complete lie, everything we see is completely made up. I remember the first time seeing the film-not knowing it was a lie thinking of several plot holes with the film, but things I could let go because "hey, it's based on a true story, i guess that's just what happened". Then of course when I found out I was just very confused. "Why bother saying it's based on a true story if it's not based on a true story!? Are they just doing that so they can get away with the plot holes!?". But nowadays I more appreciate the craft of the film for while not being actually biographical in origin, the Coens did a great job at recreating that feeling of watching a biographical film and the characters and story felt grounded and real.

The television show, despite it's quality, I have to say doesn't recapture that feeling. Everything in it feels like a television show, and I don't just mean with cinematic lighting, pacing and writing, those could all be brushed off as artistic license. It's more of the events and characters not feeling like real people, too many moments break that verisimilitude that this is supposed to feel like real life. Things like Thorton's character being a master assassin, or Freeman being able to escape from a hospital without anyone seeing him. It's not to say this is bad storytelling, it's just when a story is sold to you under the guise of being a true story, and then goes out of it's way to challenge that, it makes these plot points more obvious, especially when each episode starts by claiming it's a true story.

This isn't necessarily a criticism that hurts the show overall, more of just an observation of the change in style from the film to the show. Like I said, I still overall really liked it, and I look forward to seeing the new types of stories they tell in each subsequent season. It's a show with great acting, great writing, great directing, but if it could fool its audience into thinking it's real life like the film could. But I'd still overall recommend it to people.

-Danny