MOVIE REVIEWS : Toiling in a Fertile Field

“Fried Green Tomatoes” (at the AMC Century 14) is a folksy enigma, an ordinary film blessed with a number of out-of-the-ordinary performances. Not only does its plot deal in part with women stuck in unhappy circumstances, its very existence makes you wonder how its trapped actresses managed to make the best of a dramatically disheartening situation.

Taken from a novel by Fannie Flagg (who co-wrote the screenplay with Carol Sobieski), “Tomatoes” offers audience-friendly performances by Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kathy Bates and Mary-Louise Parker, not to mention an effective cameo by Cicely Tyson. Something about their roles, or possibly about the chance to work all together in a Hollywood notoriously stingy in viable parts for women, clearly energized these very diverse and talented actresses. Yet as much as you admire and enjoy what they’ve all done with their characters, you can’t help wishing they’d done it in another, more involving movie.

The first actress we meet is Bates, who plays the aptly named Evelyn Couch, a roly-poly candy-bar-addicted housewife whose jumbo-sized husband Ed (a very amusing and easy-to-overlook performance by Gailard Sartain) treats her like a piece of furniture. Ol’ Ed probably means well, but his only use for Evelyn seems to be as the woman who prepares the dinner he indifferently wolfs down while watching his beloved Atlanta Braves on TV.

Periodically, in a down-home sort of way, Ed and Evelyn pile in their car and visit Ed’s aunt Vesta in an Alabama nursing home. At least Ed does the visiting; Vesta is in the habit of throwing things at Evelyn, who invariably ends up spending her time munching those candy bars in the waiting room.

One afternoon, however, that all changes, as Evelyn makes the acquaintance of sprier-than-spry Ninny Threadgoode (Tandy), the feistiest of octogenarians, who announces herself by saying, “Do you know they took my gall bladder out?” After more chitchat about the efficacy of Fleet enemas, the two discover that they are both in need of someone to take them seriously, and so a friendship is born.

Ninny, it turns out, is one hell of a storyteller, and she regales Evelyn with tales from her youth, mainly the exploits of the irrepressible Idgie Threadgoode (Masterson) and her best friend Ruth Jamison (Parker) and the cafe they ran down in Whistle Stop, Ala.

Back the film goes in flashback to the Depression-era South, to Idgie, a heedless tomboy who can literally charm the bees out of their hive, and Ruth, a proper young lady who is attracted to Idgie’s spunk. The two form a deathless friendship that even Ruth’s uncertain marriage and motherhood can’t budge.

Inspired by Idgie’s example, Evelyn decides to take charge of her own life, and the bulk of “Fried Green Tomatoes” (rated PG-13) switches back and forth between Evelyn’s comic-relief attempts at self-actualization and the nominally grittier problems Idgie and Ruth have to deal with.

Though they never appear together, both Tandy and Masterson bring a similar amount of sass and skill to their very watchable performances. Tandy, of course, is the doyenne of British actresses, and though the role of Ninny is not as rich as “Driving Miss Daisy’s” Oscar-winning work, watching her effortlessly animate her character, bringing Ninny fully to life, is the most enjoyable of privileges.

Masterson, who has been vivid and charismatic in everything from “Some Kind of Wonderful” to “Immediate Family,” takes hold of the role of Idgie Threadgoode with extraordinary spirit. Though both Bates and Parker do fine work, Masterson’s burning vitality ends up leaving everyone but Tandy in the shade.

Given all these alive performances, it is baffling to have to report that “Fried Green Tomatoes’ ” story is a compendium of soap-opera cliches, simplistic and sentimental and drawn in the broadest of strokes. Though director/co-producer Jon Avnet clearly must be given some credit for what his cast has accomplished, even if it was just knowing how to get out of the way, he has not been able to do very much with Flagg’s hokey and derivative plot. Given what a fine old time all these women are having on screen, it is too bad that we can’t join more enthusiastically into the general fun.

‘Fried Green Tomatoes’

Kathy Bates:Evelyn Couch

Mary Stuart Masterson:Idgie Threadgoode

Mary-Louise Parker:Ruth Jamison

Jessica Tandy:Ninny Threadgoode

Cicely Tyson:Sipsey

Stan Shaw:Big George

Gailard Sartain:Ed Couch

An ACT III Communications in association with Electric Shadow Productions, released by Universal Pictures. Director Jon Avnet. Producers Avnet and Jordan Kerner. Executive producers Norman Lear, Andrew Meyer. Screenplay Carol Sobieski and Fannie Flagg, based on her novel “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.” Cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson. Editor Debra Neil. Costumes Elizabeth McBride. Music Thomas Newman. Production design Barbara Ling. Art director Larry Fulton. Set decorator Deborah Schutt. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13.