This movie is a wonderful piece of art. Everything, from the camera-work down to the plot and the characters is just perfect.

If I have to choose one out of the many, it's the character of Jerry Lundegaard (played by William H. Macy) that really makes this movie stand out among the other crime movies you might have seen.

This guy is so... well... recognizable! OK, he makes up a scheme to kidnap his wife, that's not what a "normal" person would do. But he is so recognizable with all his small lies. The funny thing is that every small lie of his comes on top of the big pile of all the other "small lies" he made before. At a certain moment, all the small lies combined result in such a big lie that he can only desperately hope to keep it up with his "acting". And the "acting" in this role is brilliantly done by William H. Macy...

Of course the characters of Marge Gunderson and the two baddies are also nicely done, although I don't think that the baddies here are so much different from other bad guys in other movies.

Also a big thumbs up for the general scenery in this movie. The snowy landscapes feel like they are almost meant to be a direct answer to the classic western-movies that made American cinema famous for a large part.

I'm not American, so I can't give any real opinion on the accent/dialect that is used by the characters. However, even for a non-native speaker, the humour of these characters' accent is clear enough, just because it sounds so different from the "English" I was taught at school. You find dialects all over the world. People speaking dialect are often the subject of jokes by others. It's really nice to watch a movie where a certain dialect gets such a prominent place. It reminds me of Trainspotting (only in this respect, though).

I'm giving this movie a 10.