Amy Petter-Fried Green Tomatoes(1991)

Fried Green Tomatoes

1991

John Avnet

            Fried Green Tomatoes was surprisingly a wonderful movie. This movie was much like Silence of the Lambs in the sense that it was a movie within another movie. The movie started out with Evelyn and her husband driving past an abandoned café. Evelyn strives for her husband’s attention while in the mean time they’re visiting her husband’s aunt. The aunt detests Evelyn, so she spends her time listening to Ninny, an elderly patient. Evelyn becomes obsessed with Ninny’s stories and the movie flashes back from Ninny’s stories to Evelyn’s real life problems.

            The movie begins with establishing shots of the south, which sets the location of the movie. The movie does a lot of establishing and pan shots of the scenes to get a feel for the south. The movie does a lot of full body shots, for example the scene where Idgie, Ruth, and Buddy are walking across the waterfall to the train tracks.

            The movie does a phenomenal job of creating bonds with the characters and the viewers. In the beginning I could see the bond between Buddy and Idgie. Then when Buddy died, I honestly felt horrible for her. Ruth looked as if she felt responsible because it was her hat that flew in front of the train.

            One thing that particularly caught my attention was that Evelyn wasn’t much like the other characters in movies now. She was a normal woman, not a super skinny model. She was an average sized woman. This really gave me a sense that it took place back in the day rather than now. It made the movie more realistic to the time that it should take place.

            Another thing that I noticed was the product placement. I know product placement was getting big around this time. Evelyn is the main person who does the product. The products were bigger companies such as Snickers, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Budweiser, and Cracker Jacks. I think this is noticeable because Evelyn even admits that she has a problem and can’t stop eating.

        Overall, I think that this was a movie that I would recommend to anyone. This reminded me of The Notebook, but much better and way less sappy. It dealt with subjects that were common to the time period the movie was supposed to take place. I absolutely loved Mary Louise Parker in this movie. She did a phenomenal job.