Reel Bay: A Cinematic Essay

In this disappointing debut, Larson charts her fascination with Takako Konishi, a young Japanese woman who died in Minnesota while allegedly searching for the money buried in the snow near the end of the movie Fargo. Regarding the 2001 case as the tragedy “of a woman... who wagered what little she had to make this trip out to the middle of nowhere,” Larson merges Takako’s story with her own attempts to learn whether the death, widely interpreted as accidental, was really a suicide. Using a second-person narrative voice that eventually morphs into third-person, while also switching between conventional prose and a screenplay format, Larson recounts interviewing police officers in North Dakota who encountered Takako soon before her death, and the police chief in Minnesota who led the subsequent investigation, noting that all, with little evidence, speculated that Takako was either a stripper or prostitute. Larson also describes traveling to Japan, where she befriends a young woman from Takako’s hometown and explores the theory that Takako had made a suicide pact, but uncovers little in the way of hard facts. Though initially intriguing, Larson’s narrative remains emotionally distant throughout, and its stylistic gambits largely unrewarding. (Jan.)