FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Fannie Flagg's novel is really two
stories told at the same time. A modern Alabama woman finds
her identity through a relationship with an older woman who
tells her a story of Alabama in the 1930s. However, neither
story has time to be fully developed. Rating: high +1 (-4 to
+4).
"Fried Green Tomatoes" is the name for two different recipes. One is a Southern dish I have never tried but it is reputedly delicious--it looks a lot like fried eggplant. It is also the name for a stew or goulash made from pieces of old movies about the South, and politically correct films about women learning to be independent. It is sweetened with little bits of comedy thrown in and there is a dash of bittersweet tragedy. The recipe apparently calls for two small storylines rather than one big one. This dish turns out to be palatable, even enjoyable, though a little light for my taste. Its flavor was just a little over-familiar and it left me hungry for just a bit more.
The film opens with a truck being dredged from an Alabama river in the late 1930s. We then flash forward to what may be the present or what may be a decade or so back. (We do eventually find out why the truck is important, but it is questionable why we open with that scene.) Evelyn and Ed Couch (played by Kathy Bates and Gailand Sartain) find themselves passing through the little town of Whistle Stop on the way to a nursing home to visit Ed's cantankerous aunt. (The name "Couch" was chosen, no doubt, because Evelyn and Ed are each a bit over-stuffed.) At the nursing home Evelyn meets Ninny Threadgoode (played by Jessica Tandy) and the two begin to talk. Ninny tells Evelyn a story of the past in Alabama. On repeated visits that story becomes much longer and, in fact, it is the main body of the film. In flashback we see the story of the life-long friendship of Idgie Threadgoode (played by Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth Jamison (played by Mary-Louise Parker). The story develops as parallel plots. One plot is that of Evelyn finding her own identity and getting past her late-mid-life crisis. The other is the story of Idgie and Ruth, two liberated women who run the Whistle Stop Cafe in the small Alabama town of Whistle Stop. The story is nothing greatly original. Not too surprisingly, the issue of racism rears its pointed, hooded head. There is a murder subplot and a lot of human drama in the story of the two close friends. Meanwhile, Evelyn tries to find herself through a "Total Womanhood" program, but finally finds identity through Idgie's and Ruth's liberated example. The film is a sort of adult SONG OF THE SOUTH.
Of course the film is not too adult. In Fannie Flagg's original novel, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFE, Idgie and Ruth have a lesbian relationship. In the screenplay by director Jon Avnet and Fannie Flagg, the relationship is down-played and left as a matter for speculation. The real problem with the screenplay is that *too much* must have been left out. Spreading the film's 130 minutes between two stories does not leave sufficient time to give either a satisfying telling. This was a light entertaining novel with humorous vignettes lampooning the South, much as we would expect from comedian Flagg, but also with some substance, particularly in the flashbacks. The vignettes in Evelyn's story just take too much time from what substance there might have been in the flashback. I rate FRIED GREEN TOMATOES a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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