Evelyn, an ordinary housewife, visits a nursing home and befriends the old lady Ninny. Together, they bond over stories from the past about two intrepid women of Whistle Stop Cafe.Evelyn, an ordinary housewife, visits a nursing home and befriends the old lady Ninny. Together, they bond over stories from the past about two intrepid women of Whistle Stop Cafe.Evelyn, an ordinary housewife, visits a nursing home and befriends the old lady Ninny. Together, they bond over stories from the past about two intrepid women of Whistle Stop Cafe.
- Nominated for 2 Oscars
- 6 wins & 12 nominations total
- Smokey Lonesome
- (as Tim Scott)
Featured reviews
If you want to be charmed, enchanted, moved, and find yourself wishing.... This is a film you will cherish.
I won't belabor more than others have written so well. It is a film that resides in my permanent library on my top shelf. When I watch it again, I find myself wishing that I knew the characters personally and somehow find that I do.
This film is one of the only that I esteem. It adds to your life. It hugs the heart and enriches who you are.
I want to thank all the marvelous actors. If they ever wondered why they chose their profession, this film is why.
200 years from now it will be loved and valued. The test of time is guaranteed with Fried Green Tomatoes!
The movie talks about of several women that in spite of a hard and sad life caused by the indifference of people who perhaps never had such a big heart as them, they survive thanks to the love and the understanding.
Besides the beautiful plot, the performances of Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson are more than special, are unique, exquisite and of course touching.
"Fried Green Tomatoes" is a little of all. So, don't wait just tears, don't wait just laughs, don't wait just an overflow of feelings. This is not only a drama movie. This movie is more than that.
* Excuse me for mistakes in words.
I will admit that this is the Ultimate Chick Flick. That title, however, does not detract from its overall quality. The men are more than just caricatures, and the nostalgia and love of the book made its way into the movie. I have to commend Avnet for his efforts.
And now that I am out of intelligent things to say, THIS MOVIE ROCKS MY SOCKS! It's re-watchability and great everything make this the movie (along with Love and Basketball and my Buffy DVDs) that I take with me to college and suggest we watch at every opportunity.
Anyone who went to college where I did would see that Idgy from her childhood is the sterotypical Lesbian. She does not like to wear dresses and prefers a man's dress even as a youngster. As she ages, and as Ruth befriends her, she is tantalized by a kiss Ruth gives her on the cheek at the swimming hole and so devastated by Ruth's wedding that she does not even attend but instead drives hours to Valdosta, Georgia to look on hurtfully from the woods at Ruth carried in her new home in her wedding dress.
As the film progresses and Ruth is rescued from her abusive relationship the two start a cafe called Whistle Stop Cafe in Whistle Stop, Alabama. If one watches carefully they'll see that the two live together in a house near the cafe. In one poignant moment, the two women are talking over coffee late at night in the cafe when Ruth says that she feels bad that Idgy may feel she needs to stay and care for Ruth and Buddy Threadgoode Jr. (Buddy is Ruth's son but has Idgy's last name?!) Ruth says that if it weren't for she and Buddy, Idgy may "settle down" Idgy dramatically replies "I am as settled as I am ever going to be" and "I don't want you to move out" The clincher was the image they showed shortly after that scene of Ruth in a feminine dress and Idgy in shorts and a shirt and tie, holding each other and smiling. Idgy never married or dated and Ruth never remarried.
Everyone must come to their own conclusion but mine is two women in the 1930's who enjoy a healthy, loving lesbian relationship with the disguise of business partners in a time and place when different anything race, religion or creed, was just not tolerated or accepted.
It was a good thing that Kathy Bates made this movie so soon after "Misery." She had made such an impression as a psycho in the earlier film that she might have had trouble getting herself out from under the mantle of Annie Wilkes. But she plays a completely different character here, a dowdy, bored housewife who befriends a little old lady forgotten in a retirement home (Jessica Tandy). Tandy begins to tell her the story of a female relative, Idgie Threadgoode, and her deep friendship with Ruth, which is played out in flashback by Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker. The story is one of those melodramatic, life-affirming ones, but it's acted extremely well by the four women, and the film mostly avoids the treacle that threatens to come pouring in around the edges.
Grade: A-
Did you know
- TriviaMary Stuart Masterson did all of the bee stunts herself because her stunt double quit at the last minute.
- GoofsWhen Evelyn was knocking out the wall in her house she was using a 10 pound long-handle sledgehammer to break through the wall. When Ed comes she has switched to a 2 pound sledgehammer. Swinging the big hammer is tiring and imprecise for most people. She switched to the two-pound hammer to knock out the horizontal braces.
- Quotes
[Evelyn is cut off in a parking lot]
Evelyn Couch: Hey! I was waiting for that spot!
Girl #1: Face it, lady, we're younger and faster!
[Evelyn rear-ends the other car six times]
Girl #1: What are you *doing*?
Girl #2: Are you *crazy*?
Evelyn Couch: Face it, girls, I'm older and I have more insurance.
- Alternate versionsIn the TV version, Idgie watches Ruth teaching Sunday school before taking her to her birthday party at the saloon.
- SoundtracksMy Blue Heaven
Written by Walter Donaldson and George Whiting
Performed by Gene Austin and His Orchestra
Courtesy of the RCA Records Label of BMG Music
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $11,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $82,418,501
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $105,317
- Dec 29, 1991
- Gross worldwide
- $119,418,501