FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney
FRIED GREEN TOMATOES is a film by Jon Avnet, from a novel by Fannie Flagg. The film stars Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary-Louise Parker, Mary Stuart Masterson, with a special appearance by Cicely Tyson.
FRIED GREEN TOMATOES is more like STEEL MAGNOLIAS than THELMA AND LOUISE in its setting, intentions, ensemble casting, and effect. It is a film about the friendships of women, specifically two women of the film's now, Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy, and two women of the film's post-WW I then, Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson. It is their friendships that allow these women to survive, and flourish in their own ways, their times and their male-dominated worlds. But unlike THELMA & LOUISE, there nothing of the overt rebellion and the final joyous-violent withdrawal. These women, these Southern women, mean to survive and persist, not rebel and die.
In terms of its effect on this audience of one, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES is not the radicalizing experience THELMA & LOUISE was last spring. FRIED GREEN TOMATOES is basically a comedy of manners that has nothing new to say about women, the South, or anything else. Its message is hackneyed, but may be somewhat empowering to some, and certainly uplifting for most. This is a feel-good laugher-weeper. But it is not going to threaten men the way THELMA & LOUISE did, and does.
Like STEEL MAGNOLIAS, the real strength of FRIED GREEN TOMATOES is not the story, but the cast. And the cast is wonderful. Kathy Bates, a ineffectual, class-going, 40-ish, overweight, unliberated, unsatisfied Evelyn, thrashing about for ways to refire her nearly hopeless husband and their moribund marriage, looks and comes across like a Bette Midler without the hand-waving. Her life is transformed as she get acquainted with Jessica Tandy's nursing-home character Ninny Threadgoode and gets drawn into her stories about Ruth (Mary Stuart Masterson) and her sister Idgie, the unconventional and free-thinking, pants-wearing, permanent tomboy.
Evelyn's story is mostly comedy, whereas the stories of Ruth and Idgie are high melodrama for the most part. This creates a certain dramaturgic schizophrenia, and undermines the importance of Evelyn's story, relatively unexceptional as it is. I'm assuming that Ninny is Idgie's older sister, but the film annoyingly hints time and again that she might be Idgie herself. This is one of several vague points that first-time director Avnet indulges himself in, to no good effect.
Jessica Tandy is a national treasure and with each performance becomes even better. In DRIVING MISS DAISY, she gave a finely tuned portrait of a Southern Jewish woman over a long and tumultuous period in history; it is hard to imagine anyone surpassing that performance. But she may have done so as Ninny, the ancient rememberer of vanished times, town, and people, who at first seems a little senile. But we get to understand her and love her at exactly the same pace that Evelyn does. Ninny is an 81-year-old who is not afraid of death and who is still fascinated by life and the dynamics of friendship.
Mary-Louise Parker plays Ruth, the good, conventional, nurturing woman whose life is saved by the friendship of Idgie. Parker plays Ruth with an admirable and delicate blend of strength and frailty. There is something Parker does with her upper lip and nostrils, something we saw a little of in GRAND CANYON, that completely conveys pain and willingness to survive the pain.
Mary Stuart Masterson is Idgie, who manages to avoid mannish caricatures even while being a woman who has rejected conventional femininity. It seemed pretty obvious to me that Idgie was a lesbian who loved Ruth, but somehow in the movie Ruth never seems to catch on. The latter has occasion several time to suggest that Idgie will be happy when she "settles down," even though Idgie tells Ruth "I'm as settled down as I'm ever going to be." About this and about the Idgie-Ruth relationship in general, the film seems unnecessarily coy and vague.
All in all, I think FRIED GREEN TOMATOES is pretty good flick. It's manipulative and presses all the emotional buttons with a slightly heavy touch. It makes mandatory passes at all the Southern Themes -- racism, the Klan, decay, Southern men, the plight of the black people, corruption, -- but they are strictly for the record and are not particularly heartfelt. The value of friendship, of women's friendships, specifically, is heartfelt and sincere, the sure moral center of the movie. FRIED GREEN TOMATOES has its faults, but it does some have excellences, too, the acting not being the least of them.
Therefore, I recommend that you see FRIED GREEN TOMATOES at a bargain matinee. If it really clicks for you, you can take what you save on the first ticket and apply it to the next.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews