• --
  • B-

Credits

Rated: PG-13; Length: 130 minutes; Genres: Comedy, Drama; With: Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker and Jessica Tandy
B-

Set mostly in the picturesque back-country village of Whistle Stop, Ala., during the 1930s, this tale of two young-woman friends, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), is at once a portrait of small-town sisterhood and a Southern gothic murder mystery. Masterson and Parker give lively and accomplished performances. Yet compared with the recent Rambling Rose (which it sometimes resembles), Fried Green Tomatoes is pushy, didactic, and not very well directed. An extended framing device set in the present day, with Kathy Bates as a put-upon housewife who becomes the fierce, confident, new-and-improved ''Tawanda,'' is the sort of ghastly idea that gives feminism a bad name. The movie left me wishing its sterling cast — including a radiant Jessica Tandy — had been better served. B-


  • Print
  • Del.icio.us
  • Google
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • More
 

Add Your Comments

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. You must have javascript enabled to submit a comment.
--
Change/Edit your grade
characters remaining

Copyright © 2008 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved.