Fried Green Tomatoes

Jon Avnet’s first theatrical release as a director was 1991′s Fried Green Tomatoes, a gentle drama based on the novel “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe”. When Avnet’s film was released in the United Kingdom, it was released under the full title of Fannie Flagg’s novel. The film was written by Flagg and Carol Sobieski. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress for Jessica Tandy and for Best Writing – Screenplay Based on Another Medium for Fannie Flagg and Carol Sobieski. Fried Green Tomatoes did well at the box office, too, and continues to be a popular favourite among people on DVD and home viewing.

Fried Green Tomatoes follows the life of Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates). Evelyn is turning a corner in her life and is attempting to improve things at every corner, taking classes to improve her marriage’s sexual relationship and trying new things around the home. One day during a visit to the hospital, Evelyn meets an elderly woman named Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy). Ninny sits with Evelyn and begins to share stories from a now-abandoned town of Whistle Stop, Alabama. The story mostly revolves around the growing relationship between Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker), two women who ran the Whistle Stop Cafe. As the story unfolds through Ninny’s retelling, Evelyn begins to find strength through the characters and makes various improvements in her own life, befriending Ninny along the way.

The film’s flashback segments, through the story told by Ninny, represent the foundation of Fried Green Tomatoes as it is through these stories that Evelyn finds strength in her modern time of existence. Idgie and Ruth develop a relationship that, according to the novel, is a lesbian relationship. Avnet’s film chooses to underplay this significantly and there are only the slightest of overtones as the the “reality” of their relationship. Whether or not this plays out better or worse on screen is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but what I didn’t know at the time of viewing certainly didn’t subtract from what seemed to be an honest and open relationship based on friendship and companionship. To enter into some sort of loving relationship between two women as lesbians on screen would have seemed tacked on, in my opinion.

The real substance of the story, to me, was within Evelyn’s narrative as she attempts to catch up with what it means to be a “modern woman” and begins to express herself in various ways. The novel took a decidedly more dark turn on the character of Evelyn, whereas the film choose to portray Bates as more of a feminist hero of sorts as she grew into herself and grew into her Mary Kay. Bates’ Evelyn is a gentle spirit with a kind soul, not the suicidal dark individual from Flagg’s novel. Both characters surely have their places in the annals of this tale, mind you, but I felt that Bates’ portrayal was somewhat more affecting and inviting in terms of providing a film characterization.

A lot of times, these sorts of flashbacks-told-by-a-character-in-the-present tales fail as films. Overall, it becomes taxing to watch as the older character telling the story in the present is, surprise surprise, one of the characters from the past. Fried Green Tomatoes suffers this slump in terms of filmmaking, however, by contributing a vibrant character as the listener to the story in Bates’ Evelyn. Having Evelyn as a listener to what is, essentially, a story about tolerance among the intolerant back at Whistle Stop, makes the story more vibrant and gives it a sort of practical application about seizing each day and ensuring that the intolerance from the past does not survive. Within this context, Evelyn’s intolerance is that of her husband’s and that of the battles of weight and ageism that she fights with the world around her. How she survives these battles is a treat to watch, thanks to Bates’ performance.

Fried Green Tomatoes works because it deals with stories that most people growing up in different times know how to relate to. It remains as a meditation to times past, to battles won, and to intolerances overcome. With the light-to-obvious lesbian overtones remaining in the film and the reactions to many of the less-inclined townsfolk to the racial issues within the film, it becomes clear that the message here is moving forward through history and not moving back to times of less moral significance. Fried Green Tomatoes presents what is a fairly normative point in this, as several films have conquered these issues with more entertainment value and more poignancy. Yet, it is Kathy Bates’ Evelyn taking comfort and gaining power through it all that lifts Fried Green Tomatoes up as a film and makes it an applicable and practical study for all of us today.

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