Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

Fried Green Tomatoes has no shame in being sappy and sentimental. But if you don't get hung up on that, it's really a sweet movie about reminiscing on the good and bad of life, where underneath everything the real story is about the people you love. Of course it helps that the movie is well-made and well-acted.

"Fried Green Tomates" won the "Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation" award for best film featuring a lesbian relationship… although none of it is explicitly showed! This is very revealing about Hollywood's timid representation of same-sex relationships in 1991 and how "Fried Green Tomatoes", for all its 'innocent' charm, was quite ahead of its time and featured possibly one of the best love stories of the 90's, between two Southern women in the midst of the Great Depression: Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth (Mary Louise Parker). Oh, they were friends, there's no doubt about it, but I fail NOT to see hints of a platonic love. Friends are people whose deep attachment isn't altered by a separation, but in love, one can simply not accept separation, and that Idgie and Ruth stayed together until one's final breath and the emotional reaction of the survivor says enough. Today, we'd have needed torrid sex scenes to get the point and it's probable that "Fried Green Tomatoes" would've been fried alive for not going as far as Fannie Flagg's novel went. But to be honest, I also regret that the movie didn't allow not even a simple kiss, a bold move even Spielberg dared in "The Color Purple". There's a sort of tacit hypocrisy that would have spoiled the enjoyment had the performances not been as appealing.So, we assume it's "friendship", and the episode that prepares it for the coming years is the saddening death of Idgie's big brother Buddy, and this is one of these tragedies, unnoticeably built up, you see nothing coming until it hits you in the face... literally, and make you realize how cruel life can get. Chris O' Donnell's performance is brief but memorable because we've rarely seen such a sweet guy. He's a young and gentle soul capable to find the right words, the right story so his tomboy sister Idgie stops paying attention to what other people think. That his brother dates the sweet Ruth was possibly the best life scenario for Idgie, brutally canceled by a train, and a shoe stupidly blocked in a rail track."Fried Green Tomatoes" is all told in flashback and it's purely accidental how the storyteller named Ninnie (Jessica Tandy) meets the shy and sweet Southern wife Evelyn, Kathy Bates in a role totally opposite to her previous Annie Wilkes. There was no reason for Ninnie to approach Evelyn in that retiring home, or for Evelyn to listen, but Ninnie simply felt like telling the story of some murder that happened in her youth. But even that juicy anecdote needed a good set-up so the story had to start with Buddy's death, and rightfully so, because this is how the film gets our attention and Evelyn's. The first death is basically the starter of the relationship between Ninnie and Evelyn's, Idgie and Ruth, and the viewers with the film. It all works on three levels.Back to the story: both women lost someone very dear at the same time, there's a profound wound that could hardly be concealed until they understood they were each other's remedies to their existential emptiness. Idgie is a masculine, free-spirited, loudmouth girl who's like the female version of Huck Finn. Ruth Jameson is a modern version of Scarlett's cousin Melanie, with an additional thirst for fun and adventures. Friendships are built on complementarity and that's exactly what the relationship between the two women is about, they drive each other,and find together the strength to fight adversity. In our times where it's all about empowered women, here's a movie that can easily labeled as a chick flick, but as a guy, I could relate to it, because it reflects achievements made by women being true to their nature.And I love how the story also affects Evelyn. She belongs to an era where women are supposedly stronger and more independent but this is a sweet wife who just wants her TV-sport-addict husband, fittingly named Couch, and played by a priceless teddy-bear like Gailard Sartain, to care about her. By today's standards, she would be pushed to leave her husband or pee on his beer… but Evelyn loves him, she's an insecure woman, going through the 'change' and addicted to chocolate bars, the trick is that she has to learn to love herself. Today's feminism teaches to hate men, here's a film infinitely more feminist, that is about loving people and loving yourself, without any gender shift.Take the most memorable scene where Evelyn's parking spot is taken by two young girls, and then, referring to Idgie's nickname, she pulls a 'Towanda" and hits their car several times before delivering the famous "Face it girls, I'm older and I have more insurance". It's not about a woman under the man's power but a woman victim of bullying. And for the same reason, Idgie couldn't stand Ruth's abusive husband and saved her friend by doing a little more. And when they opened the Whistle Stop and needed to protect their business, their interest, their lives, there were guys to help them, white men, black men, old men, and by exercising their male power; physical, legal or religious, and women helped them too, with their inner strength … and what could come at hand, like a frying pan… and even, what women supposedly did best: cooking.The flashback structure of the film is essential as it shows two women of different eras and yet the 'modern' woman still find a lot to learn from her elder. "Fried Green Tomatoes", while no masterpiece, defies all preconceived notions by showing that there was no specific period for women's liberation, they conquered their independence by being women, not by imitating men. The two parts of the film were not movie material but together they formed a touching and inspirational hymn to independence, love and self-esteem, and again, even as a guy, I found it irresistibly liberating!

Well having now finally seen this, I have to say this isn't the type of movie I'd been imagining over the last 25 years or so; I'd thought it would be some Southern "romantic comedy" with the four leading ladies all in the same household at the same time having various heart-warming hi-jinks; instead it's these two parallel (fairly "serious") stories about 50 years apart. I guess the earlier story was the more personally compelling for me, since it was the one with the luminous Mary-Louise Parker, whom I've been watching in "Weeds" on my cable service and it was fascinating to see this younger version of her doing her native accent (she's from South Carolina). It's fascinating how she mixes passivity with latent ferocity, like an angel carrying a switchblade knife or something. When she casually threatens to kill her abusive husband without raising her soft voice but with a little demented gleam appearing in her eyes, it's scary. It's been said "Acting is reacting," and I don't know a better reactor. She also benefits from a much "fuller" story situation, with all the other characters (I didn't even recognize old Cicely Tyson) and sobering subplots involving the KKK and domestic abuse and a murder trial (although even this veers towards camp) etc. (I've never been a fan of Mary Stuart Masterson, but she seems well cast here.) I did think that Ruth's getting sick and dying felt "rushed" ---"Wait, she has cancer? When did that happen?" ---but the actual death scene with the single camera shot was maybe the best thing in the movie. (That's what happens when people die of "natural causes," it's usually not "dramatic," they just slip away.) The "modern" story, by contrast, was mostly between Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy, who STILL had time to do four more movies after this before finally dying. (I saw her in "Dragonwyck" from 1946 but I forget what she looked like young. I'll have to catch her in something else.) The modern story felt more by-the-numbers, but the amazing Kathy Bates (who completely stole the most recent season of "American Horror Story") can bring even the tritest part (in this case the meek housewife getting "uppity") to life; she and Tandy have some great exchanges about vaginas and hormones. I was a little annoyed at the "mysterious" ending, with the suggestion that Tandy's character was possibly the older version of the Masterson character; it reminds me of a line from "Detective Story" from 1950: "Twelve years ago I threw my radio out the window; you know why? 'Cause I hate mysteries!" But at least Tandy didn't turn out to be a goddamned ghost or something—or so I'm presuming…..Anyway I'm glad I finally got to see it; my only regret is that Ruth's scumbag husband didn't suffer more when he died. Don't even get me started on the topic of abusive males, it just drives me absolutely bat-crap, reflects badly on all us male types… By the way there's a certain plot point that seems borrowed both from "Soylent Green" and "Sweeney Todd," not to mention the "Texas Chainsaw" series, and they all leave me wondering: So how were the inedible bits disposed of?

I've watched this a few times now over the years and it never fails to entertain and delight. This is so easy on all the senses. It's what this genre of movie-making is all about. The story isn't a sweet story of southern life, it touches on some sensitive subject matters and handles them very well. Great acting performances by all the major players. It depicts the sentiments of that era and the south very well. One of the few movies you can watch more than once without feeling like you're watching a re-run, and you realize that you have forgotten parts of the story! It's not over-emotional and sickly sweet and it's a lot more than a chick-flick. A great story well told, and well acted. This is a movie for guys too!!! If you haven't seen it, then you are missing out on a treat!