Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) – 3/5

Yummy!

„Fried Green Tomatoes“ is an American English-language movie from 1991, so this one is over 30 years old already, but this does not keep the film from being shown even in the 2020s and also in countries far away from America like my country Germany where it was shown last night on the big screen. I don’t think there was a special reason for that apart from the subjects discussed in here like racism, gender discrimination etc. That are still somewhat present in the 21st century nowadays, even if not as much as the media want you to believe they are. But that is another story. Let’s stay with this movie now: Norman Lear deserves a mention because he was a producer here and he just turned 100 not too long ago. The director is two-time Emmy nominee Jon Avnet and this is easily one of his most known career efforts. Interesting career he has. Directed movies at the beginning of his career and then moved on to series afterwards almost exclusively with the most known being Justified. And finally he also focused on producing films himself, such as Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated Black Swan. This one here is also an Oscar-nominated movie, it got in for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. The screenplay came from Carol Sobieski who died very briefly afterwards and also did not live to see the nomination. Also nominated was Fannie Flagg who wrote the novel this film is based on and said novel has a slightly longer title. You can see this full title at the beginning of the film. Speaking of the title, here in Germany they simply translated the „green tomatoes“ and cut the „fried“. Another poor decision for sure because it takes out the entire delicacy element and even kinda destroys the name of the location where several characters were eating in this movie.

As for the cast, with the key players at least, it is a very female-centered movie. With Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy, the film features the two Best Actress Oscar winners from the years before this film got released. Fairly impressive. Still, there are two different eras to this movie and the one in the past is so frequent and dominant that it is difficult to say if Bates is really lead here the way she was advertized and maybe also not too far from another Oscar nomination. Mary Stuart Masterson is probably lead then as well. She is the central character in these flashbacks. The framework is a not particularly happy housewife and how she meets an elderly lady and is told about the old lady’s hometown’s past. We find out about several tragedies, such as the main character’s brother dying in an unfortunate train accident when his shoes are stuck in the rails. Later on, another character with the same name I think also almost dies under the exact same circumstances, but this turns out to be more comedic. Well, as comedic as losing a limb can be, but here the relief dominates that he did not die there as well. Trains surely pose a bit of a danger in this film. By the way, the character who I just mentioned that dies early on is played by the really young Chris O’Donnell. There are others I should mention like Cicely Tyson, who reached a truly high age before dying in 2021 and Mary-Louise Parker who is just as pretty as it gets in here. It is true that everybody fell in love with her (character) in this film and I would have really loved it if she had also scored an Oscar nomination for her performance. But it wasn’t meant to be. Speaking of one actress‘ death I just mentioned before that, it can be said that almost all actors that were a part of this project managed to reach a pretty old age and almost all of them are still with us now in 2022. Jessica Tandy is obviously not, but she was also quite old when she starred in here.

There is a quote on one occasion about how every time God closes one door, he also opens another and this was a metaphor I liked here. It refers to the death of O’Donnell’s character, but the consequence is a really nice friendship between two female characters. Of course, you could argue that one of them (the blonde) was interested in more than friendship too, but it was never a subject they elaborated on in detail here, so I will not do so either. Just speculation. But it would add another controversial subject to the film in addition to racism and gender equality. The best (or actually worst) example for the latter was the scene in which we see how Parker’s character’s husband carries his woman up the stairs and then pushes her down and I was really worried she could have lost the baby through that, but the child is alive and healthy as we see a little later. The husband is not so alive and healthy a little later. The revelation what really happened that night was then one of the highlights at the end of the movie and it was not just special to see who killed the man, but also to find about about what they did with the corpse. I am pretty sure that many, many other people when watching this one thought of the film The Help. The parallel is so obvious, even in terms of the entire story and background and race issues in here. Many parallels between these two films, so if you like or even love one, then you should probably also watch the other and most likely you will not regret it. Speaking of actually delicious dishes (that even rhymes!) I must say that I really wanted to eat some fried green tomatoes after watching this film. Actually also while watching. It made me a bit hungry and eager to try or also eat filled tomatoes in general. I love tomatoes! I would not say I loved this film though. I only liked it. One issue I had here was that the Kathy Bates segments just were not particularly interesting compared to the scenes from the past and I like Bates (and Tandy) and still not even close.

As for Bates, it was a bit unusual to see her play a regular citizen, a blonde Southern girl that actually could have been even on the desirable side if a little thinner, and for once not a creepy character. Okay, slightly creepy maybe with the car collision scene. Or destroying a wall inside her home. She even kinda pokes fun at her character in Misery on one occasion, sounded as if she talked about her role there. Surely not a coincidence. I did feel a bit bad for her husband though. Another slight problem I had was, once again from this side of the story, that the connection Bates‘ character had with the old lady was too intense too fast. I mean I understood she was sad when she thought the old lady had died, but that she is ready so quickly to ask her to move in with her and in general how she talks about her as if they had been friends for decades felt a bit exaggerated to me. So my major criticisms lie in the present here. With the past, I have to dig deeper. Maybe it was a slight issue that the characters were black or white, not in the racial sense, but that there were absolutely no shades there. They were either 100% likable and tolerant and good or the exact opposite like the KKK guys and of course Ruth’s man was one of them too. The closest to somebody with shades was maybe the sheriff or whatever his title was there who was also romantically interested in the main character, but quickly understood he won’t score with her. At least, he got to carry her. More than most can say. But how he basically made it easy for the main character to leave before he would take her to jail/court also showed us that he is 100% one of the good guys. Aside from that, look at the whipping a character got here. Now this is actual racism in its most despicable form and maybe some social justice warriors who whine all day long over inequality in the 21st century can learn something from it. I doubt it though.

Finally, the scene in the now at the very end at the place we have seen in the past for so long made you think of course if Tandy’s character is the old version of the young woman she is talking about. Did she put the note on the tombstone? Maybe. Maybe not. Before that, she just made a brief reference that she had a connection wigth Cicely Tyson’s character and we do not know at all to what extent she is a part of all this as she does not talk about herself, only about what she witnessed apparently. This you can decide for yourself if she is Mary Stuart Masterson’s character in the now. At over two hours, this is a relatively long movie, but I would say the running time felt right and I would not have really cut anything. If I had changed something crucial about it, then maybe that it would have taken place completely in the past and I would have cut the segments with Bates and Tandy. Not that they were horrible, but sometimes a bit over the top nonetheless and not as entertaining, let alone funny, as I would have liked them to be. A prime example for that is the scene with the female genitalia and mirrors, also what Bates had to say there why she wanted to go to the toilet and asked her friend to come with her. I liked the friend too. She did not have a lot to work with and also not many scenes, but I found her still a bit memorable. Good job. Like with almost everybody else here surely. It is a film that will entertain you for sure, sometimes shock you perhaps and sometimes touch you, hopefully more often than for me because it only happened once or twice, which is why I can only give a rating that is the equivalent of a decent film, but not a great movie. I did like the reference at the very start though how the old lady is there in the old people’s home to be company for an old friend and they often tell them that, so they don’t have to tell them they are there because they are old themselves. Here we did have the twist though that Tandy’s character was really there to help and did leave in the end. I was still confused that she mourned her house more than her deceased friend. So yeah, this is it then. Good movie and I give it a positive recommendation, which was never in doubt. If it’s playing in a theater near you or on TV, give it a chance.