Plot

Academy Award winners Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy star with Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker in this comic, heartwarming tale of family, friendship and murder in rural Georgia. In a Southern nursing home, a feisty resident and old local fixture named Ninny Threadgoode (Tandy) befriends Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) a depressed housewife and stirs her to action with an inspirational tale. She tells the story of a transcendent friendship between two young women living in Georgia in the 1930s, Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth (Mary Louise Parker), who forge a powerful bond after witnessing a terrible tragedy together. The two women open a cafe (where fried green tomatoes are a house specialty) together in their small Southern town of Whistle Stop and manage to survive the hardships of life, despite racism, prejudice and the pressures of trying to live their lives as individuals in a strict and close-minded Southern society. Their friendship lasts through many ups and downs over the years, helping one of the women through an abusive marriage, and buoying both of them through the gossip and jealousy of those small-minded people who try to control their lives. Based on Fannie Flagg's best-selling novel FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFE.