There's something about the Midwest and its frozen winters that inspires simple affability in its townsfolk. The cold is an icy beast that merges the snow-covered landscapes and white skies into a single brilliant glow with no horizon. Accordingly, the locals huddle in warm living rooms, banding together against the weather and trade cheerful colloquialisms in the hopes of minimizing the harsh reality outside. It's a stoic culture in denial of its horrors, hoping to connect in neighborly companionship.

"Fargo" is a movie infused with Midwestern irony as people minimize not only the biting weather, but a grisly kidnapping and a string of murders as well. "Welp, whatchya got there?" is their inquisitive dialogue and after being informed of a murder they respond with a "Ya don't say?" "Yer darn tootin'!" the informer retorts. This mixture of horror and small town affability creates a provocative and wonderfully eccentric movie by the Coen brothers, the filmmaking team which has created such memorable films as "Raising Arizona" and "Barton Fink."

Jerry Lundegaard, a polite, moderately successful Minneapolis car salesman, decides he needs extra cash in a big way and devises a plan to hire two thugs, Carl and Gaer, to kidnap his wife. Jerry plans to ask his wealthy father-in-law for the ransom money, which he'll split between himself and the kidnappers. It's a simple plan, but Jerry has a fundamental inability to consider complications, and his naivete soon allows the plan to unravel into a chaotic nightmare of deceit and murder.

The police chief investigating the case is Marge Gunderson, a congenial woman seven-months pregnant and whose husband is an artist who dreams of having his bird paintings appear on postage stamps. Jerry's incompetent greed is contrasted with Marge's simple efficiency. She waddles through crime scenes as if she's buying groceries, smiling and doing domestic errands on the side, but she quickly deduces the criminal itinerary with intelligent pragmatism. "Well, let's see," she remarks, finding a murder victim. "The bullet went through the hand and the face ... I s'pose that's a defensive posture?"

The performances in the film are its best qualities, but McDormand expertly fuses Marge's small-town politeness with a sharp intelligence and easily becomes one of the most endearing police chiefs in American detective movies. Most of her dialogue ends with "Thanks a bunch!" and her polite style is both funny and touching.

"Fargo" is a stylistic change of pace for the Coen brothers, whose past films have been self-conscious exercises in visual artifice. "Fargo" is a restrained work for them, featuring straightforward cinematography as opposed to their usual penchant for sweeping camera movements and leering closeups. There are, however, images of great beauty - the endless fields of snow resemble outtakes from "Dr. Zhivago." The Coens call it "an experiment in realism," and while they claim the film is based on a true incident in 1987, no one in Minnesota can remember such an event.

But regardless of the plot's basis in realism, the Coens, Midwesterners themselves, tell the story with unflinching stoicism. As a result, the audience is forced to supply its own reactions and the Coens delight in offering contradictory elements, in mixing horrific with humor. When Jerry's wife is taken to a cabin in the woods, she stumbles through the trees sobbing and blindfolded, slipping on the snow, running nowhere in particular. It's an absurd but haunting scene and "Fargo" relishes such dramatic juxtaposition. Audiences used to Hollywood stating clearly how they're "supposed to react" will be beguiled by "Fargo"'s unique challenge to dramatic conventions.

"Fargo" is a film that jolts the audience through its stoicism, pays homage to Midwestern culture by softly poking fun at it, and offers hope by depicting small moments of kindness surrounded by rampant pessimism. In combining its icy weather and violent horrors with simple townsfolk and innocuous conversations, the movie becomes a brilliant depiction of mid-American life.