The beauty of Coen brothers movie making is the lack of exposition - i.e. characters overtly explaining their motivation, intent and even their obvious activity to the typical dim witted moviegoer. Thus the commentaries such as "lack of plot" or "was it a comedy or a drama -or what?" or "I don't get it" are common.

The best movies ever made have little or no exposition - the viewer must interpret what they are seeing. Most movies categorized as "comedy", "drama", "love story" etc... are typically not quality films or they could not be categorized so readily.

Comparing this to Raising Arizona is shameful. Both are excellent - but very different. Most who say the enjoyed Raising Arizona but couldn;t "get" Fargo probably didn't "get" Raising Arizona either. But there was enough slapstick like comedy and explosions to entertain them.

Not every scene in a movie must move the plot forward. The Coen brothers often utilize seemingly irrelevant scenes (Margie and Mike having lunch, Carl and the hooker at a night club) in their films. These scenes add a sense of reality to the film, real people do not live one track lives but rather have multiple things going on at once.

I loved this film!