So I saw this movie in the theatre back when it came out. I was a freshman in college, and I remember very clearly that everyone was all like “ooh, the Coen brothers” and I had no idea who they were or what the big deal about them was. But I remember nothing at all about what I thought about the movie — I suspect I thought it was fine? That’s the vague memory I’ve carried with me all these long decades, that it’s fine but somewhat overrated.

But what I remember clearly is that my Minnesotan classmates hated it, felt it just misrepresented Minnesotans, with its exaggerated dialects and “ya, you betcha” tics.

And watching it now, it definitely was playing with those stereotypes, but I have enough Coen-watching experience to believe that they were doing so intentionally for fun, and not because they just missed the mark on capturing how Minnesotans talk.

I also have enough Coen-watching experience to see how neatly this fits into their oeuvre, the story of a loser who gets in over his head trying to do some light crime, such that a fake kidnapping results in a trail of bodies, including — in pretty much the only scene I remembered at all — one being fed through a woodchipper.

But also, dang this is a good movie, better than I remembered. It’s genuinely funny in a lot of places, while also being serious and a little sad in that patented Coen way. There’s also great acting — Steve Buscemi playing a Steve Buscemi type to good effect; William H. Macy plays a sweaty, nervous loser who you find sympathetic and pathetic and just a little revolting; but it’s Frances McDormand’s cop who makes the movie, with a fundamental decency and unruffled cheer that contrasts with the desperate sadness of all the criminals, in a theme made explicit in a little speech at the end.

Nearly thirty years after I originally saw it, I’m upgrading my opinion to very good, and properly rated.