While visiting a rest home with her husband, an unhappily married housewife (Kathy Bates) meets lively Southern octogenarian Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy) who tells her stories about Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson), a resolute relative who ran a café with her best friend Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker) in the Depression-era Alabama town of Whistle Stop.
Jessica Tandy won an Oscar nomination for her portrayal here of the old-timer in the American south, telling tales about the bigotry she encountered during her youth in the 1930s.
Bates is almost as good, playing the modern-day housewife and frump in the dumps, who finds inspiration in Tandy’s memories of the past.
Essentially a story about friendship between two pairs of women, then and now, it could be classified as an intelligent woman’s picture, but this truly uplifting and gratifying movie – based on Fannie Flagg’s best-selling novel – can and should be enjoyed by all.
Idgie Threadgoode
Mary Stuart Masterson Ruth
Mary-Louise Parker Evelyn Couch
Kathy Bates Ninny Threadgoode
Jessica Tandy Ed Couch
Gailard Sartain Big George
Stan Shaw Sipsey
Cicely Tyson Grady
Gary Basaraba Reverend Scroggins
Richard Riehle Eva Bates
Grace Zabriskie Buddy Jr
Grayson Fricke
Director
Jon Avnet
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