reviewed by: Charity Bishop
           

Friends have been recommending this to me for years, so I finally sat down and watched it. Fried Green Tomatoes is a story about relationships, about love, and about learning to preserve the past by passing on stories to the younger generation. It's also a film about getting older, and dealing with the changes that life presents before you.

Having reached the midyears of her life, Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) is attempting to put the spark back into her marriage, but the self-serving seminars she is attending are full of ideas that her husband turns down flat. After being literally chased out of the room by her stodgy, hateful aunt-in-law in the retirement home in the small town of Whistle Stop, Evelyn plants herself on the nearest couch and starts munching on a candy bar. Along comes a resident, Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), who begins to tell Evelyn a story about the "old days." It's the early 1950's and Whistle Stop's most eccentric inhabitant is Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson). Wild beyond reckoning, no one can talk sense into her, so her harassed mother sends off for her cousin Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker). Quiet and sensible, but a no-nonsense kind of woman, Ruth ultimately breaks down Idgie's barriers and the two form a strong friendship.

The end of the summer brings changes to both their lives. Ruth goes off and gets married, but the relationship is destructive and violent. When Idgie discovers that her best friend is about to have her abusive husband's child, she loads up some of the boys, drives out to the farm house, and rescues her. Ruth's husband Frank (Nick Searcy) vows to get his family back. Over the years, the two women open a cafe together, its main menu comprised of fried green tomatoes, and create a stir in the south by openly selling food to negroes. This prompts some of the Georgia boys to threaten them with violence. Then one day Frank shows up to terrorize his family, and the next he winds up missing. What happened to him ultimately accumulates in a murder incitement, as the story Ninny tells Evelyn winds toward a dramatic conclusion.

There is a lot to like about this meaningful little story about life's difficulties and adversities. It will have you laughing one moment and crying the next. All of the characters are unique and remarkable for their strength as women. Evelyn learns the truth about herself, and has the courage to stand up for her marriage and what she wants. Ruth becomes independent of her abusive husband. Idgie is willing to sacrifice everything for the people that she loves. There are open conversations about racism and glimpses into life in that era. Even though some of the choices the characters make are wrong, it seems an honest exploration of the human heart, and you cannot help but be touched by it. There are numerous sad things that happen in the story -- losses of unimaginable worth -- but equally amusing scenes that remind us what life is all about: living it to the fullest.

While some bad language does taint the script (including several abuses of GD, and Jesus' name) more prominent are thematic elements. KKK members beat blacks and terrorize locals. Ruth shows up at the door with a black eye. When Idgie comes to rescue her, Frank slaps his wife across the face, knocking her to the floor, kicks her legs out from under her on the stairs so that she falls, slams Idgie against a wall, and threatens further violence. He hits a woman in the face with a rifle butt, knocking her unconscious. A man is hit in the head with a shovel. SPOILER: it is implied that a dead body is gotten rid of by being hacked to pieces and fried, then served to unknowing townspeople. It's implied that a young man is run over by a train; another loses an arm to a similar accident. In the classes Evelyn attends, there are some frank discussions about sex. Mirrors are handed out and classmates told to "inspect their vaginas." (Evelyn runs out of the meeting.)

There is also a mild tone of homoerotism running through Ruth and Idgie's scenes. I sensed it, and chose to believe it was natural, close friendship between females. Other people have interpreted it as a "mild lesbian love story." I am told this is more prevalent in the novel. It was not distinctive enough to concern me, but does bear mentioning in an otherwise stirring story that left me feeling as though I were a better person for having experienced it. There's something meaningful in its messages, even if by the end you do have a hankering for Fried Green Tomatoes.