Out in the Mountains

Fried Green Tomatoes: A Review

Sage Russell

Let me just say at the outset that I have not
read the book, and therefore cannot contrib-
ute to the debate on whether or not the mo-
vie betrayed its roots by not naming the re-
lationship at its heart, in order to attract a
mainstream audience. Let me say also that
the debate does not concern me much.
Whether explicitly stated or not, Fried
Green Tomatoes is without question a love
story between two women. It is the truest
representation of the texture and feeling of
women’s love that I have ever seen in a film
(although admittedly, the pickings in this
category are slim). That love is what hetero-
sexuals aie looking at when they see this
movie, whether they recognize it or not.

Refreshingly, Fried Green Tomatoes man-
ages to avoid many of the plot staples of
lesbian film and fiction. Coming out is not
an issue, and homophobia is not a factor.
Nobody gets left at the end for a man, and
the relationship does not break up from the
weight of its own significance.

Fried Green Tomatoes is about memory,
and the interplay between past and present.
It is also about the transfonning power of
women’s love and women’s autonomy. The

movie unfolds as two connected stories,
set in Alabama 60 years apart The primary

‘ story, which extends over a period of 20

years, is told in flashbacks.

Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) is an over-
weight, insecure, conventional Southern
housewife, the kind of woman who takes
Total Woman classes to put the romance
back into her niiddle—American maniage,
and apologizes when someone bumps into
her at the supermarket. As the movie
opens, she is driving with her husband Ed
to visit Ed’s aunt at a nursing home. They
take a wrong turn and find themselves in
the abandoned town of Whistle Stop, A1-
abama, where under the peeling paint on
one of the buildings they can make out the
words, “Fried Green Tomatoes at the
Whistle Stop Cafe.”

At the nursing home Ed’s aunt refuses to
see her and Evelyn goes off to a lounge to
wait. There she is approached by a talk-
ative and friendly old woman in a bathrobe
(Jessica Tandy). who says her name is
Ninny Threadgoode and that she comes
from Whistle Stop. Mrs. Threadgoode be-
gins telling Evelyn the story of Idgie

 

Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson),
who she says is a cousin of hers, and Ruth
Jamison (Mary Louise Parker), who meet
at a wedding in 1920, when Idgie is about
11 and Ruth is 17.

They meet again several years later when
Ruth spends the summer with the Thread-
goodes. Idgie, always a tomboy, is by this
time completely uncontrollable. She
smokes, drinks, plays a mean game of pok-
er, and hangs out at a dive down by the riv-
er. Idgie’s mother hopes that the ladylike
Ruth will be a good influence on Idgie. In-
stead, the influence goes in both directions
and as the summer progresses, Ruth and
Idgie begin to fall in love.

At the end of that summer, Ruth leaves to
marry Frank Bennett, who, we find out, beats
her. Idgie rescues Ruth, who is pregnant, and
brings her back to Whistle Stop. They opena
cafe together, which becomes the focal point

 

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